The advancement in cyber-physical systems has opened a new way in disaster management and rescue operations. The usage of UAVs is very promising in this context. UAVs, mainly quadcopters, are small in size and their payload capacity is limited. A single UAV can not traverse the whole area. Hence multiple UAVs or swarms of UAVs come into the picture managing the entire payload in a modular and equiproportional manner. In this work we have explored a vast topic related to UAVs. Among the UAVs quadcopter is the main focus. We explored the types of quadcopters, their flying strategy,their communication protocols, architecture and controlling techniques, followed by the swarm behaviour in nature and UAVs. Swarm behaviour and a few swarm optimization algorithms has been explored here. Swarm architecture and communication in between swarm UAV networks also got a special attention in our work. In disaster management the UAV swarm network must have to search a large area. And for this proper path planning algorithm is required. We have discussed the existing path planning algorithm, their advantages and disadvantages in great detail. Formation maintenance of the swarm network is an important issue which has been explored through leader-follower technique. The wireless path loss model has been modelled using friis and ground ray reflection model. Using this path loss models we have managed to create the link budget and simulate the variation of communication link performance with the variation of distance.
VNU University of Engineering and Technology（越南国立大学工程技术大学）；Fulbright University Vietnam（越南富布赖特大学）
This study proposes an approach for establishing an optimal multihop ad-hoc network using multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide emergency communication in disaster areas. The approach includes two stages, one uses particle swarm optimization (PSO) to find optimal positions to deploy UAVs, and the other uses a behavior-based controller to navigate the UAVs to their assigned positions without colliding with obstacles in an unknown environment. Several constraints related to the UAVs' sensing and communication ranges have been imposed to ensure the applicability of the proposed appr…
Åbo Akademi University（奥布学术大学）；KTH Royal Institute of Technology（瑞典皇家理工学院）
With the growing popularity of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for consumer applications, the number of accidents involving UAVs is also increasing rapidly. Therefore, motion safety of UAVs has become a prime concern for UAV operators. For a swarm of UAVs, a safe operation can not be guaranteed without preventing the UAVs from colliding with one another and with static and dynamically appearing, moving obstacles in the flying zone. In this paper, we present an online, collision-free path generation and navigation system for swarms of UAVs. The proposed system uses geographical locations of the…
University of Leeds（利兹大学）；University of Sheffield（谢菲尔德大学）
This paper introduces a testbed to study distributed sensing problems of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) exhibiting swarm intelligence. Several Smart City applications, such as transport and disaster response, require efficient collection of sensor data by a swarm of intelligent and cooperative UAVs. This often proves to be too complex and costly to study systematically and rigorously without compromising scale, realism and external validity. With the proposed testbed, this paper sets a stepping stone to emulate, within small laboratory spaces, large sensing areas of interest originated from e…
Bio-inspired visual relative localization for large swarms of UAVs
Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克技术大学）；Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克技术大学电气工程学院）；University of Zagreb（萨格勒布大学）；Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb（萨格勒布大学电气工程与计算机科学学院）；Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS)（机器人与智能控制系统实验室（LARICS））
Simulation environments for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be very useful for prototyping user interfaces and training personnel that will operate UAVs in the real world. The realistic operation of such simulations will only enhance the value of such training. In this paper, we present the integration of a model-based waypoint navigation controller into the Reno Rescue Simulator for the purposes of providing a more realistic user interface in simulated environments. We also present potential uses for such simulations, even for real-world operation of UAVs.
This work presents a novel, inference-based approach to the distributed and cooperative flocking control of aerial robot swarms. The proposed method stems from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) dynamics by limiting the latent set to the robots' feasible action space, thus preventing any unattainable control inputs from being produced and leading to smooth flocking behavior. By modeling the inter-agent relationships using a pairwise energy function, we show that interacting robot swarms constitute a Markov Random Field. Our algorithm builds on the Mean-Field Approximation and incorporates the c…
University of Technology Sydney（悉尼科技大学）；VNU University of Engineering and Technology（越南河内国家大学工程技术大学）
This paper presents a novel algorithm named the motion-encoded particle swarm optimization (MPSO) for finding a moving target with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). From the Bayesian theory, the search problem can be converted to the optimization of a cost function that represents the probability of detecting the target. Here, the proposed MPSO is developed to solve that problem by encoding the search trajectory as a series of UAV motion paths evolving over the generation of particles in a PSO algorithm. This motion-encoded approach allows for preserving important properties of the swarm includ…
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology（斯科尔科沃科学技术研究院）
Reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been actively applied in the field of robotics, allowing the system itself to find a solution for a task otherwise requiring a complex decision-making algorithm. In this paper, we present a novel RL-based Tic-tac-toe scenario, i.e. SwarmPlay, where each playing component is presented by an individual drone that has its own mobility and swarm intelligence to win against a human player. Thus, the combination of challenging swarm strategy and human-drone collaboration aims to make the games with machines tangible and interactive. Although some research on …
Singular Perception s.r.l（Singular Perception有限责任公司）；Teseo s.r.l.（Teseo有限责任公司）；University of Genoa（热那亚大学）
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming increasingly useful for tasks which require the acquisition of data over large areas. The coverage problem, i.e., the problem of periodically visiting all subregions of an area at a desired frequency, is especially interesting because of its practical applications, both in industry and long-term monitoring of areas hit by a natural disaster. We focus here on the latter scenario, and take into consideration its peculiar characteristic, i.e. the a coverage system should be resilient to a changing environment and not be dependent on pre-existing infras…
Defending against Intrusion of Malicious UAVs with Networked UAV Defense Swarms
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg（安全、可靠与信任 interdisciplinary 中心（SnT），卢森堡大学，卢森堡）；Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg（科学、技术与通信学院（FSTC），卢森堡大学，卢森堡）
Communication-Free Collective Navigation for a Swarm of UAVs via LiDAR-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology（机械工程系，釜山国立科学技术研究院）；Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology（机械工程系，韩国科学技术院）
Democritus University of Thrace（色雷斯德谟克利特大学）；Information Technologies Institute, The Centre for Research & Technology, Hellas（信息技术研究所，研究与技术中心，希腊）
This paper tackles the problem of positioning a swarm of UAVs inside a completely unknown terrain, having as objective to maximize the overall situational awareness. The situational awareness is expressed by the number and quality of unique objects of interest, inside the UAVs' fields of view. YOLOv3 and a system to identify duplicate objects of interest were employed to assign a single score to each UAVs' configuration. Then, a novel navigation algorithm, capable of optimizing the previously defined score, without taking into consideration the dynamics of either UAVs or environment, is propos…
Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克理工大学）；Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico (RSE) S.p.A.（意大利能源系统研究公司（RSE））
This article proposes Persistence Administered Collective Navigation (PACNav) as an approach for achieving decentralized collective navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms. The technique is based on the flocking and collective navigation behavior observed in natural swarms, such as cattle herds, bird flocks, and even large groups of humans. As global and concurrent information of all swarm members is not available in natural swarms, these systems use local observations to achieve the desired behavior. Similarly, PACNav relies only on local observations of relative positions of UAVs,…
This paper addresses the problem of target detection and localisation in a limited area using multiple coordinated agents. The swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) determines the position of the dispersion of stack effluents to a gas plume in a certain production area as fast as possible, that makes the problem challenging to model and solve, because of the time variability of the target. Three different exploration algorithms are designed and compared. Besides the exploration strategies, the paper reports a solution for quick convergence towards the actual stack position once detected by …
Sapienza University of Rome（罗马第一大学）；National Research Council（国家研究委员会）；University of Bonn（波恩大学）；University of Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学）；University of Essex（埃塞克斯大学）；Technology Innovation Institute（技术创新研究所）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）
Monitoring crop fields to map features like weeds can be efficiently performed with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can cover large areas in a short time due to their privileged perspective and motion speed. However, the need for high-resolution images for precise classification of features (e.g., detecting even the smallest weeds in the field) contrasts with the limited payload and ight time of current UAVs. Thus, it requires several flights to cover a large field uniformly. However, the assumption that the whole field must be observed with the same precision is unnecessary when features…
Communication and Control in Collaborative UAVs: Recent Advances and Future Trends
Tongji University（同济大学）；Frontiers Science Center for Intelligent Autonomous Systems（智能自主系统前沿科学中心）；United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)（阿联酋大学）；Western Sydney University（西悉尼大学）；Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University（安柏瑞德航空大学）；Hankuk University of Foreign Studies（韩国外国语大学）
Flocking behavior for dynamic and complex swarm structures
Computer Vision and Aerial Robotics group (CVAR), Centre for Automation and Robotics (CAR) Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM-CSIC)（计算机视觉与空中机器人小组（CVAR）、自动化研究中心（CAR）马德里理工大学（UPM-CSIC））
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）
The collaboration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has become a popular research topic for its practicability in multiple scenarios. The collaboration of multiple UAVs, which is also known as aerial swarm is a highly complex system, which still lacks a state-of-art decentralized relative state estimation method. In this paper, we present a novel fully decentralized visual-inertial-UWB fusion framework for relative state estimation and demonstrate the practicability by performing extensive aerial swarm flight experiments. The comparison result with ground truth data from the motion capture sy…
Gesture-Controlled Aerial Robot Formation for Human-Swarm Interaction in Safety Monitoring Applications
Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague（电子工程系控制学系，捷克技术大学）；Department of Power Generation Technologies and Materials, Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico（发电技术与材料系，能源系统研究）
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have generally little capacity to carry payloads. Through collaboration, the UAVs can increase their joint payload capacity and carry more significant loads. For maximum flexibility to dynamic and unstructured environments and task demands, we propose a fully decentralized control infrastructure based on a swarm-specific scripting language, Buzz. In this paper, we describe the control infrastructure and use it to compare two algorithms for collaborative transport: field potentials and spring-damper. We test the performance of our approach with a fleet of m…
University of Padova（帕多瓦大学）；Aalborg University（奥尔堡大学）
Over the past few years, the use of swarms of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in monitoring and remote area surveillance applications has become widespread thanks to the price reduction and the increased capabilities of drones. The drones in the swarm need to cooperatively explore an unknown area, in order to identify and monitor interesting targets, while minimizing their movements. In this work, we propose a distributed Reinforcement Learning (RL) approach that scales to larger swarms without modifications. The proposed framework relies on the possibility for the UAVs to exchange some inform…
This paper proposes a perception-shared and swarm trajectory global optimal (STGO) algorithm fused UAVs formation motion planning framework aided by an active sensing system. First, the point cloud received by each UAV is fit by the gaussian mixture model (GMM) and transmitted in the swarm. Resampling from the received GMM contributes to a global map, which is used as the foundation for consensus. Second, to improve flight safety, an active sensing system is designed to plan the observation angle of each UAV considering the unknown field, overlap of the field of view (FOV), velocity direction …
University of Genoa（热那亚大学）；Inspire S.r.l.（因斯皮尔有限责任公司）
Recent huge technological development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can provide breakthrough means of fighting wildland fires. We propose an innovative forest firefighting system based on the use of a swarm of hundreds of UAVs able to generate a continuous flow of extinguishing liquid on the fire front, simulating rain effect. Automatic battery replacement and refilling of the extinguishing liquid ensure the continuity of the action, and fire-resistant materials protect drones exposed to possible high temperatures. We demonstrate the validity of the approach in Mediterranean scrub first c…
This article presents a unique framework for deploying decentralized and infrastructure-independent swarms of homogeneous aerial vehicles in the real world without explicit communication. This is a requirement in swarm research, which anticipates that global knowledge and communication will not scale well with the number of robots. The system architecture proposed in this article employs the UVDAR technique to directly perceive the local neighborhood for direct mutual localization of swarm members. The technique allows for decentralization and high scalability of swarm systems, such as can be …
We propose a unified framework for coordinating Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms operating under time-varying communication networks. Our framework builds on the concept of graphical games, which we argue provides a compelling paradigm to subsume the interaction structures found in networked UAV swarms thanks to the shared local neighborhood properties. We present a general-sum, factorizable payoff function for cooperative UAV swarms based on the aggregated local states and yield a Nash equilibrium for the stage games. Further, we propose a decomposition-based approach to solve stage-graph…
Secure Multi-hop Telemetry Broadcasts for UAV Swarm Communication
Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany（勃兰登堡技术大学）；IHP - Leibniz Institute for High-Performance Microelectronics, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany（莱比锡高性能微电子研究所）
Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) are viewed as a special kind of robots that have the potential to significantly improve the safety and efficiency of traffic. In contrast to many swarm robotics studies that are demonstrated in labs by employing a small number of robots, CAV studies aims to achieve cooperative driving of unceasing robot swarm flows. However, how to get the optimal passing order of such robot swarm flows even for a signal-free intersection is an NP-hard problem (specifically, enumerating based algorithm takes days to find the optimal solution to a 20-CAV scenario). Here, …
University of Technology Sydney（悉尼科技大学）；University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University（越南国立大学工程技术大学）
This paper presents a real-time control system for surface inspection using multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The UAVs are coordinated in a specific formation to collect data of the inspecting objects. The communication platform for data transmission is based on the Internet of Things (IoT). In the proposed architecture, the UAV formation is established via using the angle-encoded particle swarm optimisation to generate an inspecting path and redistribute it to each UAV where communication links are embedded with an IoT board for network and data processing capabilities. Data collected…
Hamad Bin Khalifa University（哈马德·本·哈利法大学）；Barzan Holdings QSTP LLC（巴尔赞控股卡塔尔科技园区有限责任公司）
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have recently attracted significant attention due to their outstanding ability to be used in different sectors and serve in difficult and dangerous areas. Moreover, the advancements in computer vision and artificial intelligence have increased the use of UAVs in various applications and solutions, such as forest fires detection and borders monitoring. However, using deep neural networks (DNNs) with UAVs introduces several challenges of processing deeper networks and complex models, which restricts their on-board computation. In this work, we present a strategy a…
Hamad Bin Khalifa University（哈马德·本·哈利法大学）；Barzan Holdings QSTP LLC（巴尔赞控股卡塔尔科技园有限责任公司）
The deployment flexibility and maneuverability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) increased their adoption in various applications, such as wildfire tracking, border monitoring, etc. In many critical applications, UAVs capture images and other sensory data and then send the captured data to remote servers for inference and data processing tasks. However, this approach is not always practical in real-time applications due to the connection instability, limited bandwidth, and end-to-end latency. One promising solution is to divide the inference requests into multiple parts (layers or segments), …
