Aerial Swarm Defense by StringNet Herding: Theory and Experiments.

Vishnu S Chipade,Dimitra Panagou,Venkata Sai Aditya Marella

doi:10.3389/frobt.2021.640446

Abstract

This paper studies a defense approach against one or more swarms of adversarial agents. In our earlier work, we employed a closed formation (“StringNet”) of defending agents (defenders) around a swarm of adversarial agents (attackers) to confine their motion within given bounds, and guide them to a safe area. The adversarial agents were assumed to remain close enough to each other, i.e., within a prescribed connectivity region. To handle situations when the attackers no longer stay within such a connectivity region, but rather split into smaller swarms (clusters) to maximize the chance or impact of attack, this paper proposes an approach to learn the attacking sub-swarms and reassign defenders toward the attackers. We use a “Density-based Spatial Clustering of Application with Noise (DBSCAN)” algorithm to identify the spatially distributed swarms of the attackers. Then, the defenders are assigned to each identified swarm of attackers by solving a constrained generalized assignment problem. We also provide conditions under which defenders can successfully herd all the attackers. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated via computer simulations, as well as hardware experiments with a fleet of quadrotors.

Highlights

Rapid advancements in swarm technology and its increasing presence in airspace pose significant threat to safety-critical infrastructure such as government facilities, airports, and military bases
Each quadrotor is fitted with Real-Time Kinetic (RTK) supported here+ GPS module and a ESP8266 Wi-Fi module
We provide two algorithms to solve this assignment problem: centralized and decentralized, and a heuristic based on the optimal mixed integer quadratically constrained program (MIQCP) that finds this assignment quickly

Summary

Introduction

Rapid advancements in swarm technology and its increasing presence in airspace pose significant threat to safety-critical infrastructure such as government facilities, airports, and military bases. The presence of adversarial swarms nearby such entities, with the aim of causing physical damage or collecting critical information, can lead to catastrophic consequences. This necessitates solutions for the protection of safety-critical infrastructure against such attacks, in populated areas. Under the assumption of risk-averse and self-interested adversarial agents (attackers) that tend to move away from the defending agents (defenders) and from other dynamic objects, herding can be used as an indirect way of guiding the attackers to some safe area in order to safe-guard a safety-critical area (protected area). A closed formation (“StringNet”) of defending agents connected by string barriers is formed around a swarm of attackers to confine their motion within given bounds, and guide them to a safe area. Aerial Swarm Defense the assumption that the attackers stay together in a circular region, and that they react to the defenders collectively as a single swarm while attacking the protected area, can be quite conservative in practice

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