Abstract: The issue of formation attack trajectory planning for cooperative air-to-ground attack of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) is investigated. A formation trajectory planning model is built based on single UCAV three degrees of freedom equations, relative movement model and UCAV initial and terminal states constraints. The cost function is constructed, which consists of single UCAV threat and task time, number of equivalent collisions and time error of executing command. The solution framework of optimal control method is formed based on the formation model and cost function. The whole trajectory is optimized by dividing it into three segments, and every segment is resolved by hp adaptive pseudospectral method. The simulation results show that the optimized formation attack trajectory satisfies the constraints, and the formation attack trajectory planning model is provn to be effective.

Key words: control and navigation technology of aerocraft, unmanned aerial vehicle, trajectory planning, unmanned combat aerial vehicle, cooperative attack, pseudospectral method