High-Precision Multi-UAV Teaming for the First Outdoor Night Show in Singapore

Abstract

Advancement in the development of automation in aerial robotics has created endless applications today by utilizing autonomous drones, or in other words, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Motivated by the idea of the entertainment robots, in this paper, we present a robust and safe multi-UAV formation system for the purpose of entertainment in the form of a night multi-UAV teaming light show. The performance includes a 5-minutes flight show with 16 UAVs, changing patterns with background music, and with synchronized visual lighting from each of the UAVs. The high-precision autonomous formation flight is achieved with a centralized control method with a single ground control station (GCS). The system includes offline trajectory generation, safety features such as collision avoidance and UAV states monitoring, geo-fencing for out-of-bound control and many more which will be discussed in this paper. The live performance of the multi-UAV teaming night show was successfully presented to the public in conjunction with The Future of Us Exhibitions held in January 2016, in Singapore.