Programmable Autonomous Quadcopter (PAQ) Swarm
Patrick J. Haney, Luke Kamrath · Murray State's Digital Commons (Murray State University) · 2017
The purpose of this research is to develop a swarm of Programmable Autonomous Quadcopters (PAQs) that can act independently for the purpose of a controlled search. By utilizing many small, inexpensive, flying drones that autonomously avoid collisions and redirect themselves toward a desired target of unknown location, searches can be performed in situations that may be dangerous to humans or blocked by debris. In this way, there is an added advantage of redundant units in case of loss to a portion of the swarm. Starting with Crazyflie 2.0 Nanocopters and adding sensors to detect height, sources of light, and objects (including walls, obstructions, and other PAQs), autonomous flight code has been developed and implemented to achieve these goals. To date, four PAQs have been built, tested, and flown for up to five minutes each.