Optimal formation configuration design for cooperative navigation of multi-aircraft clusters

Abstract Cooperative navigation makes full use of the absolute navigation information of each aircraft and the relative navigation information among aircraft for information exchange, sharing and fusion. Compared with a single-aircraft navigation system, it provides higher navigation accuracy and stronger fault tolerance. The formation configuration of multiple aircraft directly affects the navigation accuracy and information exchange capability of the cooperative navigation system. To further improve the cooperative navigation accuracy of multi-aircraft clusters, an optimal formation configuration design method for cooperative navigation is proposed. By analyzing the inherent coupling relationship between the inter-aircraft ranging measurements and the position error states of the follower aircraft, a positioning error model for the follower aircraft is established, thereby revealing the main factors that affect the cooperative navigation accuracy of the multi-aircraft cluster. On this basis, a cooperative navigation accuracy evaluation model is constructed to precisely assess the cooperative navigation accuracy. Furthermore, an optimal formation configuration for cooperative navigation is designed, which can improve the cooperative navigation accuracy of the multi-aircraft cluster. Finally, the effectiveness of the constructed cooperative navigation accuracy evaluation model and the designed optimal formation configuration is verified through simulations.