Optimization of swarms of UAVs

Abstract

A swarm is a collection of objects or particles that are in co-ordination with each other. The concepts of swarm movement and communication is applied in a variety of applications such as traffic control or in military tactics. This paper applies swarm principles to a network of un-manned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in order to achieve optimal communication between each vehicle and to lower the amount of energy used to coordinate the movement of multiple vehicles. An optimization algorithm is being developed to work with wireless channel data from Wireless InSite, a wireless channel modeling software program, to control each UAV in the swarm network and choose the best wireless communication channels between UAVs based on characteristics such as path loss and power received. The results from this algorithm are implemented in a simulation environment constructed with OMNeT++, which also provides model visualization. This model has been evaluated in simulation in two dimensions on a 120m×120m grid and is capable of choosing optimal paths between nodes in the network by comparing channel characteristics such as path loss and power received.