Formation control of unmanned aerial vehicle swarms for outdoor monitoring in search and rescue tasks

Abstract

Advancements in robotics have expanded a use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms in critical tasks such as disaster response, including search and rescue operations during floods, hurricanes, landsliding, and earthquakes. Swarm formation control stands as a critical challenge in UAV swarm control. In this article, a simple and resource-efficient method for addressing collisions within swarm formations during outdoor missions is proposed, along with a set of formations designed for various task requirements. The proposed algorithm is implemented using the Robot Operating System (ROS) for a swarm of ten PX4-LIRS UAVs. Experiments conducted in the Gazebo simulator demonstrated the algorithm’s effectiveness, with the quantitative results presented through mean and standard deviations of the absolute positioning error measurements.