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- Design of Communication and Control for Swarms of Aquatic Surface DronesPublication . Christensen, Anders Lyhne; Oliveira, Sancho; Postolache, Octavian; Oliveira, Maria João de; Sargento, Susana; Santana, Pedro; Nunes, Luis; Velez, Fernando J.; Sebastião, Pedro; Costa, Vasco; Duarte, Miguel; Gomes, Jorge; Rodrigues, Tiago; Silva, FernandoThe availability of relatively capable and inexpensive hardware components has made it feasible to consider large-scale systems of autonomous aquatic drones for maritime tasks. In this paper, we present the CORATAM and HANCAD projects, which focus on the fundamental challenges related to communication and control in swarms of aquatic drones. We argue for: (i) the adoption of a heterogeneous approach to communication in which a small subset of the drones have long-range communication capabilities while the majority carry only short-range communication hardware, and (ii) the use of decentralized control to facilitate inherent robustness and scalability. A heterogeneous communication system and decentralized control allow for the average drone to be kept relatively simple and therefore inexpensive. To assess the proposed methodology, we are currently building 25 prototype drones from off-the-shelf components. We present the current hardware designs and discuss the results of simulation-based experiments involving swarms of up to 1,000 aquatic drones that successfully patrolled a 20 km-long strip for 24 hours.
- Wireless Sensor and Networking Technologies for Swarms of Aquatic Surface DronesPublication . Velez, Fernando J.; Nadziejko, Aleksandra; Christensen, Anders Lyhne; Oliveira, Sancho; Rodrigues, Tiago; Costa, Vasco; Duarte, Miguel; Silva, Fernando; Gomes, JorgeIn this paper, we discuss wireless sensor and networking technologies for swarms of inexpensive aquatic surface drones in the context of the HANCAD project. The goal is to enable the swarm to perform maritime tasks such as sea-border patrolling and environmental monitoring, while keeping the cost of each drone low. Communication between drones is essential for the success of the project. Preliminary experiments show that XBee modules are promising for energy efficient multi-hop drone-to-drone communication.