TESTING OF THE DRONE SWARMS AS A COMMUNICATION RELAY SYSTEM

Abstract

Background. Intensive development of the unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturing industry has led to the emergence of many of their options for various applications. A separate class of low-flying drones, the work of which takes place within the framework of a certain self-organizing (robotic) group, was made up of drones, combined in a constellation or swarm. All drones of such a swarm together can perform one common function as an independent robotic complex.Objective. The aim of this work is experimental testing and development of the basic principles of controlling a swarm (constellation) of drones and the formation of a cooperative relay system.Methods. The structural and functional methods of constructing a wireless network based on a drone swarm are investigated.Results. Testing a swarm of drones was carried out according to two relay scenarios: passive using metallized reflectors and active using additional SDR radio units. Drones were formed on the basis of the quadcopter model Syma X8 PRO. For testing, radio channels in the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands were involved.The developed kit based on the Raspberry Pi and ADALM-Pluto programmable modules allows you to use them very flexibly both on drones and on the ground control station by changing the software on them. Each of the drones has many degrees of freedom with respect to the choice of wireless connection to other swarm drones or external devices, including ground control station. This increases the noise immunity, fault tolerance and functionality of sucha system, as well as the possibility of building it up.Conclusions. Experimental testing and testing of the basic principles of controlling a swarm (constellation) of drones and the formation of a cooperative relay system were carried out. Scenarios for centralized and distributed construction of a collective drone swarm management network for communication services have been developed.