Conflict-Free Swarm Shape Formation with Minimal Operator Involvement

Abstract: Swarms of drones are used in both shows and operational missions (civilian and military). They are complex systems that raise a number of technical issues. Among these is the following. Whatever the context, the members of the swarm must organize according to patterns (or shapes) that depend on the show/mission at hand. To form a given shape, the drones of the swarm must take off and then fly to their respective position of operation (or target position) without colliding with one another. For shows, drones have positions to reach that are known long in advance (i.e. when the show is defined) and their optimal collision free flight path from the ground to this position can consequently be computed off-line, before the show. This can also be supported by the fact that the drones can be organized in an ad hoc on the ground before take-off manner since time permits. For operational missions, it is necessary to act fast and there is no time neither to configure an application that would precompute paths to form a given pattern, nor to organize the drones on the ground to make shape formation easier. Still, if no care is taken, it is most likely that a number of drones will collide with one another (which becomes increasingly likely as swarm size grows). The goal of our work is to address this issue. It should be noted that the possible dynamic behavior of the swarm once the drones have reached their target positions is out of the scope of our current work. Of major importance is addressing the human factor and more precisely the load that is put on the operator. The perfect system should obey the following mode of operation: (i) the operator dispatches the drones on the ground without any position constraint; (ii) each drone is then provided with its current position (that can be acquired by using a GNSS) and its target position. (iii) the operator presses the “start mission” button, and the drones automatically fly to their positions of operation; (iv) the mission is run ; (v) the drones automatically flight back to their original (home) positions; (vi) the operator returns each drone to the storage unit. This closes the mission. In this work, we describe a number of tentative approaches from the literature, others that we have experimented in earlier studies, and those that we are currently developing.

Keywords: Drones, Swarms, Operator Load, Take-off, Algorithm, Swarm Shape Formation

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006940

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