A Communication System for Dynamic Leader Selection in Distributed UAV Swarm Architecture

Abstract

Distributed swarm robot systems are made up of several robots that communicate with one another and often work together to complete a task or reach a predetermined objective. These systems frequently consist of many platforms, like unmanned aerial aircraft, mobile robots, or other types of vehicles. This paper offers a comprehensive exploration of the design, modeling, and real-world hardware and software implementation of a distributed swarm system. The decision was made to employ standard Pixhawk hardware for the swarm agents. Pixhawk, a freely available hardware and software platform for autonomous flight control, is commonly utilized in autonomous cars, multirotor vehicles, drones, and various robotic applications. Operating autonomously from the ground control station, swarm agents dynamically identify leaders during operation and execute leader tracking navigation to model swarm behavior. Ensuring generality and dynamism in all protocols and communication was a primary focus during the research phase. To maintain this dynamism, each protocol and communication process is implemented in distinct threads on the computer, and synchronization is achieved through synchronization primitives, shared memory, and interthread communication.