Aiming at the shortcomings of the unmanned vehicle formation method,an unmanned vehicle formation method based on improved pigeon flock algorithm and a leader-following method was proposed.There are certain limitations when the traditional pigeon group algorithm is used in the unmanned vehicle formation,so an initial solution was provided at the beginning of the algorithm to improve the calculation efficiency,and corresponding weight index was added to the geomagnetic operator of the algorithm to improve the planning efficiency of the algorithm in the overall path.In the formation process,the improved pigeon flock algorithm was used to plan an optimal path for the leader,and then the leader-following method was used to control each follower to follow the leader at a certain distance and angle to realize the set formation movement.The feasibility of the formation method was verified by establishing a grid map for simulation and practical application on a real unmanned vehicle.The results show that compared with the quantum particle swarm optimization algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm,the main advantages of the improved pigeon swarm algorithm are short optimal path,short running time and high convergence rate.