Robust Event-Triggered Formation Tracking of Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Aperiodic Communication Outages
- 1Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan 430033, China
Abstract
Reliable formation tracking of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is particularly challenging when external acceleration disturbances, command saturation, actuator-induced acceleration tracking errors, sampled communication, and recurrent common-mode outages occur simultaneously. This paper develops a predictor-based robust event-triggered leader–follower framework for a three-dimensional flight-path point-mass outer-loop model. A projected adaptive distributed observer estimates the leader state and is shown to achieve practical fixed-time stability over effective communication-available intervals. A constant-velocity state predictor and a dimensionless sampled-data triggering rule reduce inter-UAV transmissions, where the outage model accounts for physical outages, candidate-grid and dwell-time waiting, and network resynchronization. Prediction-error terms of the same order as the nominal signed-power feedback are retained explicitly to derive sampled-mode dissipation conditions and uniform ultimate boundedness for bounded outages followed by sufficiently long effective communication-available intervals. An adaptive robust controller separately addresses the matched acceleration-channel uncertainty and the unmatched observer-correction input; the virtual inertial acceleration is subsequently mapped to commands for thrust, normal load factor, and flight-path bank angle. Numerical comparisons, ablation studies, sensitivity analyses, and integration-step convergence tests illustrate finite-horizon formation recovery and a communication–accuracy–control-effort trade-off without numerically certifying the analytical recovery-interval condition.
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BibTeX
@article{zhang2026robust,
title = {{Robust Event-Triggered Formation Tracking of Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Aperiodic Communication Outages}},
author = {Yu Zhang and Shiyan Sun and Qizheng Zhou and Huimin Zhu and Likun Han and Chi Li},
journal = {Mathematics},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.3390/math14214056},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/14/21/4056},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Robust Event-Triggered Formation Tracking of Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Aperiodic Communication Outages
AU - Yu Zhang
AU - Shiyan Sun
AU - Qizheng Zhou
AU - Huimin Zhu
AU - Likun Han
AU - Chi Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
JO - Mathematics
DO - 10.3390/math14214056
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/14/21/4056
AB - Reliable formation tracking of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is particularly challenging when external acceleration disturbances, command saturation, actuator-induced acceleration tracking errors, sampled communication, and recurrent common-mode outages occur simultaneously. This paper develops a predictor-based robust event-triggered leader–follower framework for a three-dimensional flight-path point-mass outer-loop model. A projected adaptive distributed observer estimates the leader state and is shown to achieve practical fixed-time stability over effective communication-available intervals. A constant-velocity state predictor and a dimensionless sampled-data triggering rule reduce inter-UAV transmissions, where the outage model accounts for physical outages, candidate-grid and dwell-time waiting, and network resynchronization. Prediction-error terms of the same order as the nominal signed-power feedback are retained explicitly to derive sampled-mode dissipation conditions and uniform ultimate boundedness for bounded outages followed by sufficiently long effective communication-available intervals. An adaptive robust controller separately addresses the matched acceleration-channel uncertainty and the unmatched observer-correction input; the virtual inertial acceleration is subsequently mapped to commands for thrust, normal load factor, and flight-path bank angle. Numerical comparisons, ablation studies, sensitivity analyses, and integration-step convergence tests illustrate finite-horizon formation recovery and a communication–accuracy–control-effort trade-off without numerically certifying the analytical recovery-interval condition.
SN - 2227-7390
ER -