Towards a Unified Decentralized Swarm Management and Maintenance Coordination Based on MAVLink
Thomas Dietrich, Oleksandr Andryeyev, Armin Zimmermann, Andreas Mitschele‐Thiel · 2016
Small and flexible micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) are capable of flying autonomously following the instructions of an autopilot received from a controlling ground entity. Their utilization includes commercial applications and reconnaissance missions. Moreover, MAVs can be combined into swarms to be effectively used in missions that would be impossible or too time-consuming for single entities. This paper proposes a comprehensive set of coordination commands necessary for the communication between swarm MAVs and ground entities. Moreover, an implementation as an extension of the MAVLink micro air vehicle message library is presented.