Amorim, Thulio G. S. (Universidade Federal da Paraiba), Nascimento, Tiago (Universidade Federal da Paraiba), Petracek, Pavel (Czech Technical University in Prague), De Masi, Giulia (Technology Innovation Institute), Ferrante, Eliseo (Technology Innovation Institute), Saska, Martin (Czech Technical University in Prague)

Self-Organized UAV Flocking Based on Proximal Control

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Swarms I" (FrC3), Friday, June 18, 2021, 14:20−14:40, Edessa

2021 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), June 15-18, 2021, Athens, Greece

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 25, 2024

Abstract

In this work, we address the problem of achieving cohesive and aligned flocking (collective motion) with a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We propose a method that requires only onboard sensing of the relative range and bearing of neighboring UAVs, and therefore requires only proximal control for achieving formation. Our method efficiently achieves flocking in the absence of any explicit orientation information exchange (alignment control), and achieves flocking in a random direction without externally provided directional information. To implement proximal control, the Lennard-Jones potential function is used to maintain cohesiveness and avoid collisions. Our approach may be used independently from any external positioning system such as GNSS or Motion Capture, and can therefore be used in GNSS-denied environments. The performance of the approach was tested in real-world conditions by experiments with UAVs that rely only on a relative visual localization system called UVDAR, proposed by our group. To evaluate the degree of alignment and cohesiveness, we used the order metric and the steady-state value.