Recent development of unmanned aerial vehicle swarms

JIA Yongnan; TIAN Siying; LI Qing

doi:10.7527/S1000-6893.2019.23738

ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA >

2020 , Vol. 41 >Issue S1: 723738 - 723738

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7527/S1000-6893.2019.23738

Recent development of unmanned aerial vehicle swarms

JIA Yongnan ,
TIAN Siying ,
LI Qing

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1. School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China;
2. Hiwing Aviation General Equipment Co. Ltd. Beijing, Beijing 100074, China

Received date: 2019-12-17

Revised date: 2019-12-20

Online published: 2019-12-26

Supported by

National Natural Science Foundation of China (61603362); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (FRF-TP-19-031A2)

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Abstract

Swarm as a typical collective behavior is omnipresent in animal kingdom, such as fish schooling, bird flocking, and bee swarming. In a colony, large-scale synchronous behavior emerges by virtue of local sensing and very simple communication rules. Inspired by these collective performances, the swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles is proposed as a new combat pattern. These unmanned aerial vehicles are characterized by large quantity, low cost, high speed, well adaptability, and convenient carried/launched mechanism, contributing to the scale advantage of UAVs and the possession of war initiative In recent years, many military powers, such as China, Russia, United States, have made great effort to the continuous development of swarm-related technology of unmanned aerial vehicles. To resolve the swarming problem of unmanned aerial vehicles, this paper introduces the research motivations of UAVs, summarizing the research approaches from modeling, control protocol, and execution platform. Besides, several classical combat modes and involved key technologies are discussed in detail. Above all, the swarm-related technology has bright application potential in the military area, leading to a brand new combat pattern.

Key words： unmanned aerial vehicles; swarming technology; large-scale system; man/unmanned cooperative control; distributed control

Cite this article

JIA Yongnan , TIAN Siying , LI Qing . Recent development of unmanned aerial vehicle swarms[J]. ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA, 2020 , 41(S1) : 723738 -723738 . DOI: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2019.23738

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