Aerial Target Encirclement and Interception with Noisy Range Observations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a strategy for UAVs to encircle and intercept moving aerial targets using noisy range data, employing innovative trajectories and control methods for effective state estimation and target neutralization.

Contribution

It presents a novel anti-synchronization trajectory and an adaptive control scheme for encirclement and interception under noisy measurements, with rigorous stability analysis.

Findings

Effective target encirclement demonstrated in simulations

Successful UAV experiments validate the approach

Robust state estimation under noisy range observations

Abstract

This paper proposes a strategy to encircle and intercept a non-cooperative aerial point-mass moving target by leveraging noisy range measurements for state estimation. In this approach, the guardians actively ensure the observability of the target by using an anti-synchronization (AS), 3D ``vibrating string" trajectory, which enables rapid position and velocity estimation based on the Kalman filter. Additionally, a novel anti-target controller is designed for the guardians to enable adaptive transitions from encircling a protected target to encircling, intercepting, and neutralizing a hostile target, taking into consideration the input constraints of the guardians. Based on the guaranteed uniform observability, the exponentially bounded stability of the state estimation error and the convergence of the encirclement error are rigorously analyzed. Simulation results and real-world UAV experiments are presented to further validate the effectiveness of the system design.