A cohesive and well-spaced swarm with application to unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

In swarm robotics, the self-organization of multiagent systems which consists of a number of comparatively simple agents is an approach inspired from natural swarms. In this paper, we solve the findpath problem of n e N agents using the principle of swarming. A Lagrangian swarm model which could navigate in a cluttered configuration space is developed. A Lyapunov like function is constructed from which the velocity controllers are derived. The Lyapunov-like function contains attractive and repulsive components. The swarm model is simulated for verification of its functionality and intuitive insight into the system behavior suggest that the solutions are bounded about the centroid. We show that indeed the solutions are bounded about the centroid by showing the wellspacedness and cohesivenss of the swarm. The velocity controllers are then applied to swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles.