Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Formation Flight
The challenge of achieving safe formation flight by unmanned aerial vehicles has been extensively investigated in 21st century with aircraft and spacecraft systems. For aerial vehicles the advantages of performing formation flight include fuel saving, improved efficiency in air traffic control and cooperative task allocation. For space vehicles precise control of formation flight may enable future large aperture space telescopes, variable baseline space interferometers, autonomous rendezvous and docking and robotic assembly of space structures. One of the simplest formations used is where autonomous aircraft maintain formation with a lead aircraft which may itself be autonomous.
Read more about this topic: Formation Flying
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