Decentralized task distribution among cooperative UAVs in surveillance systems applications

Abstract

Teams of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being largely proposed to be used in different areas for both military and civilian applications. Their integration in wider sensor networks is also being considered in order to provide a better cost-benefit ration. However, coordination among UAV teams is not a trivial problem in an ad hoc network. This paper presents a decentralized coordination strategy to orient the actions of a team of UAVs, which take part in a wider sensor network, relying on ad hoc network communication. The proposed sensors network inclused static sensors that issue alarms indicating the presence of possible targets that must be handled by one of the UAVs and possibly relay messages among them. Preliminary results of the proposed approach are presented and are contrasted with results provided by a centralized solution for the problem.