Drone Team Collaboration as A Distributed System
Research Goal
Development of a decentralized system of collaborative UAVs that can jointly bring a large load from one place to another.
Strategic Alignment
Decentralized collaborative system of UAVs provide the ability to lift heavy loads while also simultaneously reducing the dependence on any individual UAV in the team.
Objectives
- Develop a physics based simulation environment for multi-UAV load-transportation system.
- Develop machine learning based controllers for each UAV with the goal of transporting the load, by working as a team.
- Extend the methodology to real-life control of multiple collaborative UAVs.
Approach
Apply Genetic Fuzzy Methodology (GFM) or Machine Learning (ML) techniques to train the system of UAVs to achieve the common goal of transporting a load to a target location. By penalizing undesirable actions, GA/ML can tune the controller parameters to ensure near-optimal performance by the UAV team.
Applications
- Lifting heavy objects in industrial and military missions.
- Agile communication and connection for fast responding natural disasters.
- Agile sensor networking for quick situation awareness.
State-of-the-art
UAV team activities are mostly limited to formation flights coordinated by a centralized controller which is vulnerable to security or reliability problems. An individual UAV's behavior can easily affect the performance of the entire team.
