Drone Swarms as Networked Control Systems by Integration of Networking and Computing

Abstract

The study of multi-agent systems such as drone swarms has been intensified due to their cooperative behavior. Nonetheless, automating the control of a swarm is challenging as each drone operates under fluctuating wireless, networking and environment constraints. To tackle these challenges, we consider drone swarms as Networked Control Systems (NCS), where the control of the overall system is done enclosed within a wireless communication network. This is based on a tight interconnection between the networking and computational systems, aiming to efficiently support the basic control functionality, namely data collection and exchanging, decision-making, and the distribution of actuation commands. Based on a literature analysis, we do not find revision papers about design of drone swarms as NCS. In this review, we introduce an overview of how to develop self-organized drone swarms as NCS via the integration of a networking system and a computational system. In this sense, we describe the properties of the proposed components of a drone swarm as an NCS in terms of networking and computational systems. We also analyze their integration to increase the performance of a drone swarm. Finally, we identify a potential design choice, and a set of open research challenges for the integration of network and computing in a drone swarm as an NCS.

Engineering Emergence: A Survey on Control in the World of Complex Networks

“…The simplest node control is open loop, known as reactive control in mobile robotics and MASs, in which nodes react to inputs without the presence of a feedback loop. One of the most famous applications for reactive laws is Boids [230], but newer applications have moved to local feedback in inventive configurations [231][232][233][234]. These results are fairly recent and not always explicit as concerns the design of local controllers.…”

Simulation of Data Losses, Nonlinearity and Modulation Impact in RPAS/UAV Swarms

“…Automating swarms' management is challenging as every drone operates under uctuating wireless, networking and environment constraints. In the review [19], drone swarms are considered as Network Control Systems (NCS), in which the control of the entire system is carried out within the wireless communication network. This is based on a tight interconnection between the networking and computational systems, aiming e ciently support data collection, information exchanging, decisionmaking, and the distribution of commands.…”

“…Therefore, the number of publications devoted to these issues is constantly increasing. In recent years, many books, reviews, tutorials [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and articles [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] have been published. RPAS/UAV swarms are a multi-agent system and jointly perform tasks of different scale and complexity.…”

Formation Control of Quadrotor UAVs and Localisation Analyses Via Wireless Sensor Networks

“…Whilst in [10], the authors propose a swarm existing of a singular leader and multiple followers tracking behind the leader using Wi-Fi signal strength. Or, in [11], where the authors proposed a network control system based UAV swarm approach. Swarms of UAVs are often thought of as more cost effective than traditional manned units.…”

“…This process could be accelerated with the use of drone swarms as they have the ability to execute tasks in parallel drastically decreasing the time taken to complete the large scale surveillance while simultaneously improving fault tolerance [30]. In this paper, expanding from similar works such as [31], [32], and [11], a novel pipeline surveillance technique using quadrotor based UAVs is proposed. This study will explore the utilisation of multiple UAVs to conduct low altitude monitoring, an area where so far, little research has been completed.…”