Rachit Surve

Flight Path Planning for Drone Swarms What algorithms are available to combat the lack of development in flight path planning techniques that utilize U2U communications?

Started June 1, 2023

Abstract or project description

This project seeks to analyze and improve upon the SOTA in flight path planning for drone swarms. The project will first review the different types of algorithms and approaches to drone swarm flight path planning. The project will then be focused on developing a simulation environment to model and analyze the behavior of drone swarms and their robustness to different environmental conditions. With this in place, the project will focus on developing or improving upon flight path planning algorithms for drone swarms. It will analyze the performance of the selected algorithm in various conditions. Finally, this project will capture both the strengths and limitations of flight path planning and discuss where future works should focus on. This project will emphasize both safety and what is keeping drone swarms from mass adoption and regulatory certification.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are powerful devices that aid humans by going to places that are difficult to reach and returning data about its surroundings. Drones use many types of sensors to gather details about what is happening and to make decisions accordingly. Generally, these UAVs communicate with humans on the ground. As technologies improve, direct connections between UAVs(U2U) may be more efficient. A web of connected drones, or “drone swarm,” can be used to improve drone package deliveries, scout larger regions for conditions to help with agriculture, reduce room for human error, and serve as a military defense weapon. The leading issue with drone swarms is the lack of advanced technology in certain aspects; flight path planning, flight endurance, and payload capacities are examples of this. The ability of UAVs to self determine and establish meaningful connections with nearby drones will be assessed and backed up with simulation and computational data. This paper will discuss possible algorithms that utilize U2U communication to create reliable flight paths.