Task-Based Network Reconfiguration in Distributed UAV Swarms: A Bilateral Matching Approach

Abstract

In this paper, we study the problem of network reconfiguration when unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms suffer damage. Multiple UAVs are divided into several groups to perform various tasks. Each master UAV is connected to the ground control station and provides network services for small UAVs that perform various tasks, ensuring that the information of small UAVs can be transmitted back in a timely manner. When master UAVs are destroyed due to factors such as jamming or attacks, the associated small UAVs must select new master UAVs for network service and cooperate with other small UAVs to execute tasks. Based on the heterogeneity and relevance of tasks, we model and analyze the task relationship among different UAVs. Since both master UAVs and small UAVs have respective optimization objectives in the network reconfiguration process, we construct a many-to-one bilateral matching market to model the interaction between master UAVs and small UAVs. To realize an efficient solution for UAV network reconfiguration in complex environments, we propose a distributed matching algorithm and prove that the algorithm can converge to two-sided stable matching. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the task completion degree of the network compared with three other algorithms.