UAV Swarm Broadcast Control Using Stored Collision-Free Flight Paths
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems controlling swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles require multiple radio controllers, leading to high bandwidth usage and synchronization challenges, and necessitate each vehicle to know the position of every other vehicle to avoid collisions.
Innovation Solution
A system with a single controller that broadcasts commands to all unmanned aerial vehicles, each equipped with a processor and memory to retrieve and execute predefined flight plans, ensuring vehicles follow unique paths to avoid collisions without needing to know the positions of others.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If multiple radio controllers are used to control each vehicle in the swarm, then each vehicle can be controlled individually, but the bandwidth requirement increases significantly and synchronization becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple separate radio controllers into a single controller that manages the entire swarm. This single controller broadcasts commands to all vehicles simultaneously, eliminating the need for multiple independent control channels and significantly reducing bandwidth requirements while maintaining individual vehicle control capability through targeted command assignment
Solution Approach 2:
The single controller is designed with multi-functionality to handle control of multiple vehicles simultaneously. It can issue different commands to different vehicles or groups of vehicles through broadcast mechanisms, making one controller perform the work of multiple controllers while reducing overall system bandwidth consumption
2Ease of operation
If multiple radio controllers are used to control each vehicle in the swarm, then each vehicle can be controlled independently, but synchronization of choreography commands becomes challenging
Solution Approach 1:
By consolidating control authority into a single controller, the patent eliminates the synchronization problems inherent in multiple independent controllers. The single controller inherently synchronizes its broadcasts to all vehicles, ensuring that choreography commands are executed simultaneously across the swarm without requiring complex inter-controller synchronization protocols
3Reliability
If each vehicle knows the position of every other vehicle to avoid collision, then collision avoidance is achieved, but communication overhead and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized controller as an intermediary that manages collision avoidance for the entire swarm. Instead of each vehicle needing to know and process position information about all other vehicles, the single controller receives position data, processes collision risks, and issues appropriate avoidance commands to specific vehicles, dramatically reducing communication overhead while maintaining reliable collision avoidance
Data Source
AI summary
A system comprising, a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles and a single controller for controlling said plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, wherein the single controller is configured such that it can broadcast a command to all of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles so that each of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles receive the same command; and wherein each of the unmanned aerial vehicles comprise a memory which stores a plurality of predefined flight paths each of which is assigned to a respective command; and wherein each of the unmanned aerial vehicles comprise a processor which can, (i) receive a command which has been broadcasted by the single controller to said plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, (ii) retrieve from the memory of that aerial vehicle the flight path which is assigned in the memory to that command, and (iii) operate the aerial vehicle to follow the retrieved flight path. There is further provided a corresponding method of controlling a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles.