Velocity controllers for a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

The biological concept of a swarm’s emergent behavior resulting from the self-organization of the individuals in a swarm is an important piece of information that can be integrated into industrial manufacturing of unmanned ground or aerial vehicles. In this paper, we present a Lyapunov-based path planner that organizes the individuals, governed by a simple rigid-body model, of a swarm into formations which ensure a safe collision-free path for the swarm to its target in obstacle-cluttered environments. Via the Direct Method of Lyapunov that establishes the swarm system’s stability, we propose the instantaneous velocity function for each individual. The velocity functions could be easily integrated into industrial designs for the individuals of a swarm of unmanned ground or aerial vehicles. As an application, we consider the planar formation of a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) using their kinematic models for simplicity. Via computer simulations, we illustrate several self-organization such as elliptic and linear formations, split/rejoin, and tunneling maneuvers for obstacle avoidance and helical trajectory for milling. In particular, the linear formations have been proposed as suitable for the surveillance of large areas such as the Exclusive Economic Zones.