A global path planning method for unmanned vehicle formation based on pilot-following method

Path planning refers to finding a collision free path from the initial state to the target state according to certain evaluation criteria in the environment with obstacles. The traditional path planning method of UAV is inefficient and the planned path distance is long. This paper designs a global path planning method for UAV formation based on pilot following method. First, the kinematics structure of the pilot following formation is designed, and the communication topology between formations is constructed. Then, the driving priority of the driverless vehicle is assigned, and the optimization objective is designed according to the number of turns and path angle of the driverless vehicle. Finally, according to the consistency theory, the global path planning control is realized by using the speed control quantity. The experimental results show that the path planning search time of this method is 2.59s and 3.21s respectively, and the path distance of UAV is 48.7m and 51.7m respectively in an obstacle free/obstacle free environment; Compared with the results of existing literature, this new method has better planning efficiency.