Non-Centralized Navigation for Source Localization by Cooperative UAVs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed, cooperative UAV navigation method for static source localization, leveraging heterogeneous RSS sensors, on-the-fly trajectory planning, and accounting for communication latency and NLOS conditions.

Contribution

It presents a novel decentralized approach combining heterogeneous RSS measurements, multi-hop data dissemination, and non-linear 3D motion planning for UAV source localization.

Findings

Effective localization accuracy under NLOS conditions

Robustness to communication latency and measurement age

Distributed trajectory planning improves source estimation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a distributed solution to the navigation of a population of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to best localize a static source. The network is considered heterogeneous with UAVs equipped with received signal strength (RSS) sensors from which it is possible to estimate the distance from the source and/or the direction of arrival through ad-hoc rotations. This diversity in gathering and processing RSS measurements mitigates the loss of localization accuracy due to the adoption of low-complexity sensors. The UAVs plan their trajectories on-the-fly and in a distributed fashion. The collected data are disseminated through the network via multi-hops, therefore being subject to latency. Since not all the paths are equal in terms of information gathering rewards, the motion planning is formulated as a minimization of the uncertainty of the source position under UAV kinematic and anti-collision constraints and performed by 3D non-linear programming. The proposed analysis takes into account non-line-of-sight (NLOS) channel conditions as well as measurement age caused by the latency constraints in communication.