Research on distributed cooperative control of swarm UAVs for persistent coverage

Persistent coverage for a unknown environment of swarm UAVs is researched, and a distributed collaborative method with kinematic constraints of UAV is proposed. This algorithm does not need environmental model, advanced path planning nor global communication. Each UAV make its coverage decision based on real-time local sensing and local communications. The information needs to be exchanged is very little, i.e. only position information needs to be exchanged within local inter-UAV communication, which makes the algorithm simpler and more practical. The simulation results show that the UAVs can cooperate using this method and the desired persistent coverage behavior is emerged in swarm UAVs. The target area is completely and continuously covered, and the performance of the algorithm is stable, flexible and scalable.