Abstract The application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms in both civilian and military fields has received significant attention in recent years, and one of the key issues is the formation flight control. This study reviewed the relevant literature. First, three ways of organizing UAV formation computation and communication structures were introduced, respectively, centralized, distributed, and hybrid schemes. Then, commonly used formation flight control approaches were introduced respectively the leader-follower approach, virtual structure approach, behavior-based approach, and artificial potential field approach. Besides, these approaches were dissected and compared from different perspectives, including formation generation, formation keeping, obstacle avoidance, achievability, robustness, and computing and communication resources requirements, thus providing a convenient reference for interested readers. Finally, key difficult problems and feasible future research directions were discussed.
2024, Vol. 7 
