Continuous swarm surveillance via distributed priority maps

Abstract

With recent and ongoing improvements to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) endurance and availability, they are in a unique position to provide long term surveillance in risky environments. This paper presents a swarm intelligence algorithm for executing an exhaustive and persistent search of a non-trivial area of interest using a decentralized UAV swarm without long range communication. The algorithm allows for an environment containing arbitrary arrangements of no-fly zones, non-uniform levels of priority and dynamic priority changes in response to target acquisition or external commands. Performance is quantitatively analysed via comparative simulation with another leading algorithm of its class. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.