COPELABS, Universidade Lusofóna, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal.
Bolgatanga Technical University, Sumbrungu UB-0964-8505, Ghana.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Apr 9;21(8):2642. doi: 10.3390/s21082642.
The study of multi-agent systems such as drone swarms has been intensified due to their cooperative behavior. Nonetheless, automating the control of a swarm is challenging as each drone operates under fluctuating wireless, networking and environment constraints. To tackle these challenges, we consider drone swarms as Networked Control Systems (NCS), where the control of the overall system is done enclosed within a wireless communication network. This is based on a tight interconnection between the networking and computational systems, aiming to efficiently support the basic control functionality, namely data collection and exchanging, decision-making, and the distribution of actuation commands. Based on a literature analysis, we do not find revision papers about design of drone swarms as NCS. In this review, we introduce an overview of how to develop self-organized drone swarms as NCS via the integration of a networking system and a computational system. In this sense, we describe the properties of the proposed components of a drone swarm as an NCS in terms of networking and computational systems. We also analyze their integration to increase the performance of a drone swarm. Finally, we identify a potential design choice, and a set of open research challenges for the integration of network and computing in a drone swarm as an NCS.
由于其协作行为，多智能体系统（如无人机群）的研究得到了加强。然而，由于每个无人机都受到不断变化的无线、网络和环境限制的影响，因此自动化控制群集是具有挑战性的。为了应对这些挑战，我们将无人机群视为网络控制系统（NCS），其中整个系统的控制都在无线通信网络内部进行。这是基于网络和计算系统之间的紧密互联，旨在有效地支持基本控制功能，即数据收集和交换、决策制定以及驱动命令的分配。基于文献分析，我们没有找到关于将无人机群设计为 NCS 的修订论文。在本综述中，我们通过集成网络系统和计算系统，介绍了如何将自组织无人机群开发为 NCS 的概述。从这个意义上说，我们根据网络和计算系统描述了 NCS 中无人机群的各个组成部分的特性。我们还分析了它们的集成，以提高无人机群的性能。最后，我们确定了一个潜在的设计选择，并为网络和计算在 NCS 中的无人机群中的集成提出了一系列开放性研究挑战。
