Formation flight is when multiple objects fly together in a coordination. Various automatic control methods have been used for the autonomous execution of formation flight of aerial vehicles. In this paper, the capacity of the model predictive control (MPC) approach in the autonomous execution of formation flight is examined. The MPC is a controller that capable of performing formation flight, maintaining tracking desired trajectory while avoiding collisions between aerial vehicles, and obstacles faced. Through this approach, aerial vehicle models with six degrees of freedom in a three-dimensional environment are performed formation flight autonomously, mostly in a triangle order. Not only the trajectory for the formation flight can be tracked through the MPC architecture, also the collision avoidance strategies of the aerial vehicles can be performed by this architecture. Simulation studies show that MPC has sufficient capability in both cases. Therefore, it is concluded that this method can deal with constraints, avoid obstacles as well as collisions between aerial vehicles. However, implementation of MPC to aerial vehicles in real time holds challenges.

The Auto'Mate technologies were tested on several DT-25 target drones, and during almost six hours of flight testing, the four successively launched receivers were sequentially controlled and commanded without human interaction. These cutting-edge technologies demonstrate a significant breakthrough for future aerial operations involving manned and unmanned assets, and could reduce crew fatigue, minimize crew-training costs, and provide more effective operations. A second campaign is planned towards the end of 2023, which will explore the use of navigation sensors based on artificial intelligence and enhanced algorithms for autonomous formation flight. This groundbreaking achievement is a significant step towards autonomous formation flight and autonomous air-to-air refueling (A4R), and holds great potential for future aerial operations involving both manned and unmanned assets. "The success of this first flight-test campaign paves the way for developing autonomous and unmanned air-to-air refuelling technologies," said Jean Brice Dumont, Head of Military Air Systems at Airbus Defence and Space.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Prior to deployment, robots must be extensively trained and tested. With physical prototypes, this can be expensive and impractical.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Prior to deployment, robots must be extensively trained and tested. With physical prototypes, this can be expensive and impractical.