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Flight Patterns for Swarms of Drones

Shuqin Zhu, Shahram Ghandeharizadeh

TL;DR

This paper tackles collision-free passage of drone swarms through narrow openings to access infrastructure like charging stations or hangars in holodeck-style flight displays. It proposes flight patterns as fixed-slot queues, with pattern length $M$ and inter-slot spacing $\frac{1}{\lambda}$ that realize an admission rate $\lambda$ for FLSs. Patterns can be geometric or non-geometric and are arranged in 2D or 3D hierarchies, managed by a centralized Orchestrator or through decentralized, gossip-based coordination to enforce ordering policies such as prioritizing drones with the least remaining flight time. The approach enables scalable, orderly drone access in constrained openings, potentially improving battery utilization and throughput in distributed charging and storage scenarios, and is supported by examples in horizontal, vertical, and 3D configurations.

Abstract

We present flight patterns for a collision-free passage of swarms of drones through one or more openings. The narrow openings provide drones with access to an infrastructure component such as charging stations to charge their depleted batteries and hangars for storage. The flight patterns are a staging area (queues) that match the rate at which an infrastructure component and its openings process drones. They prevent collisions and may implement different policies that control the order in which drones pass through an opening. We illustrate the flight patterns with a 3D display that uses drones configured with light sources to illuminate shapes.

Flight Patterns for Swarms of Drones

TL;DR

This paper tackles collision-free passage of drone swarms through narrow openings to access infrastructure like charging stations or hangars in holodeck-style flight displays. It proposes flight patterns as fixed-slot queues, with pattern length and inter-slot spacing that realize an admission rate for FLSs. Patterns can be geometric or non-geometric and are arranged in 2D or 3D hierarchies, managed by a centralized Orchestrator or through decentralized, gossip-based coordination to enforce ordering policies such as prioritizing drones with the least remaining flight time. The approach enables scalable, orderly drone access in constrained openings, potentially improving battery utilization and throughput in distributed charging and storage scenarios, and is supported by examples in horizontal, vertical, and 3D configurations.

Abstract

We present flight patterns for a collision-free passage of swarms of drones through one or more openings. The narrow openings provide drones with access to an infrastructure component such as charging stations to charge their depleted batteries and hangars for storage. The flight patterns are a staging area (queues) that match the rate at which an infrastructure component and its openings process drones. They prevent collisions and may implement different policies that control the order in which drones pass through an opening. We illustrate the flight patterns with a 3D display that uses drones configured with light sources to illuminate shapes.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 5 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Flight Patterns
  3. Multiple Openings
  4. Related Work
  5. Conclusions and Future Research

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: A Dronevision (DV) with charging stations behind a wall at the back of the display. FLSs with depleted batteries fly through the narrow vertical opening to land on a charging station and charge their batteries.
  • Figure 2: Charged FLSs join the bottom of the rose illumination. They move up in an orderly manner. Those with almost depleted batteries at the top of the illumination. These FLSs are scheduled in flight patterns for one of the four openings that provide them with access to the charging coils.