1 This work was funded by the United States Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Contract Number N00014-00-C-305. Abstract—This paper presents a study of tactical information operations in autonomous teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). We discuss the special challenges presented by the autonomous UAV team model, and we present the self-sustaining, self-configuring dynamic network architec...

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are hindered by their limited payload and duration. Consequently, UAVs spend little time in their area of operation, returning frequently to base for refueling. The effective payload and duration of small UAVs is increased by moving the support base closer to the operating area; however this increases risk to personnel. Performing the refueling operations a...

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been developing dramatically due to wars and miniaturisation of technology, which has made the UAV industry a very lucrative business. Research organisations have been funded by various research committees or military groups to push UAV developments at a very fast pace. Although these UAVs are high in capability, they are limited to a single use application ...

Simulation environments for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be very useful for prototyping user interfaces and training personnel that will operate UAVs in the real world. The realistic operation of such simulations will only enhance the value of such training. In this paper, we present the integration of a model-based waypoint navigation controller into the Reno Rescue Simulator for the pu...

Collision avoidance for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a vital issue when using multiple drones. Decentralized collision avoidance algorithms allow for greater range and independence when compared to a centralized approach; however, it also shifts the workload of detecting and resolving conflicts from a more powerful ground station onto individual agents, requiring both a computationally ef...

Visual tracking of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on a smart phone can be quite a daunting task. In this paper an image processing algorithm is outlined in order to be able to assist a user in visually tracking small UAVs. Due to the small nature of the target, simple template matching or optical flow provided to be too process intensive and unreliable for real time tracking. To improve ...

For missions involving multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), dependable collision avoidance techniques are necessary to ensure mission completion and UAV safety. In this paper, we outline and implement an algorithm to reduce collisions using Inverse Proportional Navigation (IPN). Our algorithm checks for imminent collisions and resolves them by increasing the Line Of Sight (LOS) rate betwee...

This article addresses the visual area coverage problem using a team of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The UAVs are assumed to be equipped with a downward facing camera covering all points of interest within a circle on the ground. The diameter of this circular conic-section increases as the UAV flies at a larger height, yet the quality of the observed area is inverse proportional to the UAV’...

The problem of decentralized multiple Point of Interests (PoIs) detection and associated task completion in an unknown environment with multiple resource-constrained and self-interested Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is studied. The UAVs form several coalitions to efficiently complete the compound tasks which are impossible to be performed individually. The objectives of such coalition formati...

This paper presents a bio-inspired controller capable of controlling a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide a visual representation of an invisible airborne hazardous substance such as a chemical cloud. By using this approach, the position of the individuals in the swarm of UAVs forms a distribution map without the need for transmitting sensor data to a base station for chemical ...