Simulation of Scale-Free Correlation in Swarms of UAVs

Abstract

Natural phenomena such as flocking in birds, known as emergence, is proved to be scale-invariant, i.e., flocks of birds exhibit scale-free correlations which give them the ability to achieve an effective collective response to external conditions and environment changes to survive under predator attacks. However, the role of scale-free correlations is not clearly understood in artificially simulated systems and thus more investigation is justifiable. In this paper, we present an attempt to mimic the scale-free behavior in swarms of autonomous agents, specifically in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). We simulate an agent-based model, with each UAV treated as a dynamical system, performing persistent surveillance of a search area. The evaluation results show that the correlation in swarms of UAVs can be scale-free. Since this is a part of ongoing research, open questions and future directions are also discussed.