A case study on local decentralized air traffic protocol for multiple multicopters

For a multiple multicopter system, the increase in the number of multicopters may lead to severe trap problems. These will abort missions, crash multicopters, or even injure people. To solve the trap problem and guarantee the mission of each multicopter, an Air Traffic Management (ATM) system should build. In this paper, a local decentralized air traffic protocol for multiple multicopters is proposed to solve the trap problem and complete a series of tasks in a local low altitude airspace. Based on the Artificial Potential Field (APF) method, the protocol is designed in the form of a state machine to coordinate the motions of multiple multicopters. Finally, some simulations are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed protocol in a case study.