Collaborative Maxima-Turn-Switching for Source Seeking in 2-D Environment with Two Sensor-Equipped UAVs

This paper presents a combination of maxima-turn-switching and pursuit strategies to drive two mobile sensory aerial agents to an unknown source of a scalar signal field in a planar environment. The source may be stationary, moving or maneuvering, but is assumed to be of constant signal strength. The signal strength is assumed to lessen with distance from the source. The only available information are the scalar measurements of the signal field captured by the on-board sensor of the UAVs at each time-instant. Each of the two UAVs is assumed to be able to communicate the measured signal strength with the other one, and know the relative position of the other one. The ability of the proposed method in driving the UAVs towards the source, for varied initial conditions, and stationary and mobile sources, is demonstrated through simulation results. A comparison of the proposed method with an existing method for localizing a stationary source is demonstrated using simulations to show the time-efficiency of the proposed method.