Autonomous Swarm Flight Control of Quadrotors Based on Boids Model & RTK-GPS Positioning
Hao-Po Chang, Li-Ying Lin, Kuang‐Yow Lian · 2023
Currently, many studies on drone swarms use centralized control methods that navigation calculations are performed uniformly through a ground station and then navigation instructions are sent separately to each quadrotor for operation. In contrast, this study integrates multiple domain technologies, including RTK-GPS positioning, MQTT protocol, and 4G communication, to propose an autonomous swarm flight control system of quadrotors based on the Boids model. This system uses a decentralized control strategy, which means that each individual quadrotor is not subject to centralized control. By using only three simple flight control mechanisms, the swarm system proposed in this study achieves autonomous formation flight missions with high coordination. During the process, each individual quadrotor in the swarm maintains a certain safe distance from one another. According to the test results of the quadrotor swarms experiments consisting of three quadrotors, the positioning accuracy of this system can reach 4 cm, and the execution period of the navigation algorithm is about 0.1 seconds. The system exhibits good control performance and stability.