Cooperative source seeking and contour mapping of a diffusive signal field by formations of multiple UAVs

Abstract

This paper presents three scenarios using multiple UAVs based cooperative source seeking strategy to locate the position of a diffusive signal field and contour mapping via cooperative multiple UAVs with circular formation flight. An existing source seeking algorithm is adopted and improved in this paper for better signal source locating, then the algorithm is modified to achieve contour mapping of the signal field. A formation control strategy used for consensus problem is simplified and applied in this paper to stabilize the UAVs formation flight during detection. The contour mapping algorithm and the formation control strategy are combined to guarantee the contour mapping of the diffusive signal field via cooperations of multiple UAVs.