Optimized flocking of autonomous drones in confined environments.

We address a fundamental issue of collective motion of aerial robots: how to ensure that large flocks of autonomous drones seamlessly navigate in confined spaces. The numerous existing flocking models are rarely tested on actual hardware because they typically neglect some crucial aspects of multirobot systems. Constrained motion and communication capabilities, delays, perturbations, or the presence of barriers should be modeled and treated explicitly because they have large effects on collective behavior during the cooperation of real agents.

Flocking algorithm for autonomous flying robots.

Animal swarms displaying a variety of typical flocking patterns would not exist without the underlying safe, optimal and stable dynamics of the individuals. The emergence of these universal patterns can be efficiently reconstructed with agent-based models. If we want to reproduce these patterns with artificial systems, such as autonomous aerial robots, agent-based models can also be used in their control algorithms.