Flight Patterns for Swarms of Drones

TL;DR

This paper introduces collision-free flight patterns for drone swarms to pass through openings for charging or storage, ensuring safe and efficient access while supporting various queuing policies.

Contribution

It proposes novel flight pattern algorithms for collision-free drone passage through narrow openings, adaptable to different operational policies.

Findings

Flight patterns prevent drone collisions during passage.

The approach supports multiple queuing policies.

Demonstration with 3D drone display using light sources.

Abstract

We present flight patterns for a collision-free passage of swarms of drones through one or more openings. The narrow openings provide drones with access to an infrastructure component such as charging stations to charge their depleted batteries and hangars for storage. The flight patterns are a staging area (queues) that match the rate at which an infrastructure component and its openings process drones. They prevent collisions and may implement different policies that control the order in which drones pass through an opening. We illustrate the flight patterns with a 3D display that uses drones configured with light sources to illuminate shapes.