Mission-Oriented Miniature Fixed-Wing UAV Swarms: A Multilayered and Distributed Architecture

Abstract

UAV swarms have triggered wide concern due to their potential application values in recent years. While there are studies proposed in terms of the architecture design for UAV swarms, two main challenges still exist: (1) Scalability, supporting a large scale of vehicles; (2) Versatility, integrating diversified missions. To this end, a multi-layered and distributed architecture for mission oriented miniature fixed-wing UAV swarms is presented in this paper. The proposed architecture is built on the concept of modularity. It divides the overall system to five layers: low-level control, high-level control, coordination, communication and human interaction layers, and many modules that can be viewed as black boxes with interfaces of inputs and outputs. In this way, not only the complexity of developing a large system can be reduced, but also the versatility of supporting diversified missions can be ensured. Furthermore, the proposed architecture is fully distributed that each UAV performs the decision-making procedure autonomously so as to achieve better scalability. Moreover, different kinds of aerial platforms can be feasibly extended by using the control allocation matrices and the integrated hardware box. A prototype swarm system based on the proposed architecture is built and the proposed architecture is evaluated through field experiments with a scale of 21 fixed-wing UAVs. Particularly, to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first work which successfully demonstrates formation flight, target recognition and tracking missions within an integrated architecture for fixed-wing UAV swarms through field experiments.

Joint Optimization of Resource Allocation and Trajectory Control for Mobile Group Users in Fixed-Wing UAV-Enabled Wireless Network

“…In this paper, we aim to provide fair coverage for each MGU while ensuring flying security. The safe flight radius of the fixed-wing UAV shouldn't be less than 200 m [17]. Hence, we take the UAV flight radii r I = max{r 1 /2, 200} and r F = max{r N /2, 200}, respectively, where r1 and rN are the distribution radii of MGUs in time slot n = 1 and n = N, respectively.…”

“…Recently, trajectory optimization of fixed-wing UAVs has been actively investigated in UAVenabled wireless networks. Specifically, UAV trajectory optimizations with fixed altitude in a two-dimensional (2D) plane have been extensively explored in [12]- [16], while three-dimension (3D) UAV trajectory optimizations have been investigated in [17]- [19]. From the perspective of aerodynamics [9], trajectory planning of the fixed-wing UAV is mainly limited by non-hovering features and bounded flight curvature.…”

Distance-Based Formation Control for Fixed-Wing UAVs with Input Constraints: A Low Gain Method

“…[1][2][3]. In reality, the multi-UAV formations have been frequently used in light shows, disaster relief, and communication maintenance [4,5]. Thus, the study of multi-UAV formation has arisen much attention in recent years.…”

Multi-UAV Coverage through Two-Step Auction in Dynamic Environments

“…Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have the characteristics of low operating cost, good maneuverability, and no risk of casualties [1,2]. Accordingly, it has been applied to many fields, such as surveying and mapping [3], surveillance [4], bathymetry [5][6][7][8][9], and disaster rescue [10,11].…”