A Lyapunov Vector Field-Based Guidance for Cooperative Standoff Target Tracking with Collision Avoidance

Pranav Niturkar, Pallov Anand, Swaraj Nistane, Rajat Agrawal, Manav Mishra, A. Pedro Aguiar and P. B. Sujit

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the problem of tracking a target at a desired standoff distance in the presence of obstacles for two unmanned aircrafts (UAs) with constant speed constraint. The two vehicles must be separated at equally. Due to speed constraints, velocity of the vehicle cannot changed, and hence we develop a mechanism to modify the virtual radius of approach for the UAs such that they eventually maintain both the separation as well as the desired standoff distance from the target. To achieve this objective, we develop a novel Lyapunov vector field-based guidance law for the vehicles to persistently track the target while avoiding obstacles. The convergence of the proposed guidance law is shown through Lyapunov analysis. The approach is validated through simulations and also through indoor laboratory experiments. The results show that the proposed approach successfully tracks the target.