Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2020, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (5): 996-1008.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2020.000074

• Systems Engineering • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Optimal observation configuration of UAVs based on angle and range measurements and cooperative target tracking in three-dimensional space

Haoran SHI(), Faxing LU*(), Hangyu WANG(), Junfei XU()   

  • Received:2020-01-02 Online:2020-10-30 Published:2020-10-30
  • Contact: Faxing LU E-mail:Shihaoran_1992@163.com;lfx1974@163.com;wanghangyu@sina.com;xjf09531@sina.com
  • About author:SHI Haoran was born in 1992. He received his M.E. degree from Naval Aeronautical and Astronautical University. Now he is a Ph.D. candidate of the College of Weaponry Engineering, Naval University of Engineering. His research interests include systems and control, optimization theory and target localization and tracking by UAVs. E-mail: Shihaoran_1992@163.com|LU Faxing was born in 1974. He received his M.E. degree from Naval University of Engineering in 2000 and Ph.D. degree from Naval Academy of Kuznetsov in 2008. Now he is an associate professor at Naval University of Engineering. His research interests include command and control. E-mail: lfx1974@163.com|WANG Hangyu was born in 1965. He received his M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Naval University of Engineering in 1994 and 2004, respectively. Now he is a professor at Naval University of Engineering. His research interests include fields of command and control. E-mail: wanghangyu@sina.com|XU Junfei was born in 1990. He received his M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Naval University of Engineering in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Now he is a lecturer at Naval University of Engineering. His research interests include optimization theory and application. E-mail: xjf09531@sina.com
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61703419);This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61703419)

Abstract:

This article investigates the optimal observation configuration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on angle and range measurements, and generalizes predecessors' researches in two dimensions into three dimensions. The relative geometry of the UAVs-target will significantly affect the state estimation performance of the target, the cost function based on the Fisher information matrix (FIM) is used to derive the FIM determinant of UAVs' observation in three-dimensional space, and the optimal observation geometric configuration that maximizes the determinant of the FIM is obtained. It is shown that the optimal observation configuration of the UAVs-target is usually not unique, and the optimal observation configuration is proved for two UAVs and three UAVs in three-dimension. The long-range over-the-horizon target tracking is simulated and analyzed based on the analysis of optimal observation configuration for two UAVs. The simulation results show that the theoretical analysis and control algorithm can effectively improve the positioning accuracy of the target. It can provide a helpful reference for the design of over-the-horizon target localization based on UAVs.

Key words: target state estimation, optimal observation configuration, Fisher information matrix (FIM), Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB)