Modular Swarm Control Unit for Commercial Drone Formations
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for providing illustrations in air space, such as pyrotechnics, banner pulling, and water fountain lighting, are limited by safety concerns, high costs, and inability to create dynamic, interactive, and reusable displays, which are not effectively addressed by existing technologies.
Innovation Solution
A modular flight formation control unit that integrates with commercially available drones to enable dynamic flight formations by generating and sending control information via radio interfaces, ensuring safe and stable flight paths, and allowing for the addition of various auxiliary units like LED lights or smoke generators, enabling complex and large-scale, interactive aerial displays.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a flight formation group is created using commercially available drones, then system costs and time expenditure are reduced, but the technological complexity and know-how requirements for controlling the formation increase
Solution Approach 1:
A ground control unit is introduced as an intermediary device that receives control commands and transmits them to multiple drones via radio interfaces. This mediator handles the complex coordination logic, allowing commercially available drones to be used without requiring modifications to their internal flight control systems, thus reducing system costs while managing technological complexity through a dedicated control device.
Solution Approach 2:
The ground control unit is designed with multiple radio interfaces that can simultaneously communicate with multiple drones, enabling a single device to control an entire flight formation. This multi-functional approach allows one ground control unit to manage numerous drones, reducing the need for individual control systems on each drone and lowering overall system costs.
2Reliability
If custom hard- and software is developed for each UAV to satisfy formation flight requirements, then flight formation control is achieved, but development time and system costs increase substantially
Solution Approach 1:
The formation flight control functionality is extracted from the individual drones and placed in a separate ground control unit. This extraction allows commercially available drones with standard flight control software to be used, eliminating the need to develop custom hard- and software for each UAV. The ground control unit handles all formation coordination, reducing development time while maintaining reliable formation control.
3Reliability
If expert knowledge in air force management is required for flight formation, then safe formation flight is achieved, but operational complexity and training requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The ground control unit automatically manages formation flight operations by receiving high-level commands and autonomously distributing control signals to individual drones. This self-service capability handles the complex air force management tasks automatically, reducing the need for operators to have expert knowledge while maintaining safe formation flight through automated coordination and conflict resolution.
Data Source
AI summary
An unmanned aerial vehicle having a drive unit for enabling the flight of the aerial vehicle in air space and having a flight control unit, which is configured to receive control information from a radio remote control or to control positions of the aerial vehicle in air space that employ stored position information in order to control the flight course of the aerial vehicle. A modular flight formation control unit has a first interface with the flight control unit and a second radio interface to a flight formation ground control unit or with flight formation control units of other aerial vehicles, and the flight formation control unit configured to generate or send control information corresponding to the radio remote control and is configured to output, via the first interface, flight formation control information relevant for the formation flight of at least two aerial vehicles to the flight control unit.