Drone Swarms as Networked Control Systems by Integration of Networking and Computing

Abstract

The study of multi-agent systems such as drone swarms has been intensified due to their cooperative behavior. Nonetheless, automating the control of a swarm is challenging as each drone operates under fluctuating wireless, networking and environment constraints. To tackle these challenges, we consider drone swarms as Networked Control Systems (NCS), where the control of the overall system is done enclosed within a wireless communication network. This is based on a tight interconnection between the networking and computational systems, aiming to efficiently support the basic control functionality, namely data collection and exchanging, decision-making, and the distribution of actuation commands. Based on a literature analysis, we do not find revision papers about design of drone swarms as NCS. In this review, we introduce an overview of how to develop self-organized drone swarms as NCS via the integration of a networking system and a computational system. In this sense, we describe the properties of the proposed components of a drone swarm as an NCS in terms of networking and computational systems. We also analyze their integration to increase the performance of a drone swarm. Finally, we identify a potential design choice, and a set of open research challenges for the integration of network and computing in a drone swarm as an NCS.