DCP and VarDis: An Ad-Hoc Protocol Stack for Dynamic Swarms and Formations of Drones -- Extended Version

TL;DR

This paper introduces VarDis, a protocol stack designed for drone swarms that enhances beaconing to support variable sharing and centralized control, with performance analyzed mainly through simulations.

Contribution

It presents the VarDis protocol, enabling variable sharing among drones for improved control and coordination in dynamic swarm environments.

Findings

VarDis effectively supports variable dissemination in drone swarms.

Simulation results show good performance in dynamic scenarios.

Protocol enhances safety and control in drone formations.

Abstract

Recently, swarms or formations of drones have received increased interest both in the literature and in applications. To dynamically adapt to their operating environment, swarm members need to communicate wirelessly for control and coordination tasks. One fundamental communication pattern required for basic safety purposes, such as collision avoidance, is beaconing, where drones frequently transmit information about their position, speed, heading, and other operational data to a local neighbourhood, using a local broadcast service. In this paper, we propose and analyse a protocol stack which allows to use the recurring-beaconing primitive for additional purposes. In particular, we propose the VarDis (Variable Dissemination) protocol, which creates the abstraction of variables to which all members of a drone swarm have (read) access, and which can naturally be used for centralized control of a swarm, amongst other applications. We describe the involved protocols and provide a mainly simulation-based performance analysis of VarDis.