The Cooperative Hunters — Efficient Cooperative Search For Smart Targets Using UAV Swarms
Yaniv Altshuler, Vladimir Yanovsky, Israel A. Wagner, Alfred Marcel Bruckstein · 2005
Abstract. This work examines the Cooperative Hunters problem, where a swarm of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) is used for searching after one or more “smart targets ” which are moving in a predefined area, while trying to avoid detection by the swarm. By arranging themselves into an efficient flight configuration, the UAVs optimizes their integrated sensing capability, and are thus capable of searching much larger territories than a group of uncooperative UAVs. The problem was introduced in [1], while similar work also appears in [6–10]. This work presents two decentralized cooperative search algorithms which demonstrate major improvements over the algorithm and analysis presented in [1]. The first algorithm uses improved flying patterns which achieve superior search performance. An analytic optimality proof for the algorithm’s performance is presented. The second algorithm is a fault tolerant algorithm which allows the UAVs to search in areas whose shapes and sizes are unknown to the UAVs in advance (in comparison to the algorithm of [1] which is designed for rectangular shapes whose dimensions are known to the swarm). Keywords — Swarm Algorithm, Cooperative Search, UAVs Swarm. 1