Currently, a defense sphere uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs have several advantages over manned aircrafts such as small size, reduced combat losses of personnel, etc. In addition, in threat environment, it is necessary to arrange both bringing together distant from each other UAVs in a group and their undetected in radar fields compact flying in terms of the joint flight security.
However, the task to control a UAVs group is much more difficult than to control a single UAV, since it is necessary not only to control the aircraft, but also take into account the relative position of objects in the group.
To solve this problem two ways are possible: using a network exchange between members of the group on the "everyone with everyone" principle and organizing the leader-headed flight.
The aim of the article is to develop and study a possible option of the UAVs group control with arranging a leader-headed flight to provide the undetected in radar fields compact flying in terms of the joint flight security.
The article develops a universal algorithm to control leader-headed group, based on a new modification of the statistical theory of optimal control. It studies effectiveness of the algorithm. While solving this task, a flight of seven UAVs was simulated in the horizontal plane in a rectangular coordinate system. Control time, linear errors of desired alignment of UAV, and control errors with respect to angular coordinates are used as measures of merit.
The study results of the algorithm to control a leader-headed group of UAVs confirmed that it is possible to fulfill tasks of flying free-of-collision group of UAVs with essentially reduced computational costs.