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.

翻译：编队飞行是指多个物体协同飞行的一种方式。各类自动控制方法已被用于航空器的自主编队飞行执行。本文研究了模型预测控制（MPC）方法在自主编队飞行中的能力。MPC是一种能够执行编队飞行、保持期望轨迹跟踪同时避免航空器间碰撞及应对障碍物的控制器。通过该方法，三维空间中的六自由度航空器模型能够以三角形编队为主实现自主编队飞行。MPC架构不仅能实现编队飞行的轨迹跟踪，还能执行航空器的避碰策略。仿真研究表明，MPC在两种情况下均具备充分能力。因此，可得出结论：该方法能够处理约束条件、规避障碍物及航空器间碰撞。然而，将MPC实时应用于航空器仍面临挑战。