A Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Platform for UAV Swarm Decision-Making

Ziwei Xin, Jie Li, Ziquan Wang, Juan Li*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Rule-based swarm decision-making algorithms have been widely used in the research of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm systems. However, current research mostly utilized numerical simulation to verify effectiveness of various decision-making algorithms, which is still a long way from actual flight tests. Therefore, this paper proposes a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform consisting of dynamic model, control module, swarm decision-making module and multi-UAV communication module. Taking a small fixed-wing UAV as an example, the dynamic model is implemented by the aerodynamic model library JSBSim. The control module includes the Total Energy Control System (TECS) and the L1 control method. A rule-based swarm decision-making algorithm is transplanted to NVIDIA TX2 as a swarm decision-making module. A multi-UAV communication module based on User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is built to ensure the information interaction among UAVs. In the test of the three behavior rules of alignment, cohesion and separation, the feasibility of the HIL simulation platform is verified on the one hand, and the effectiveness of the rule-based swarm decision-making algorithm in this simulation platform is verified on the other hand.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of 2021 5th Chinese Conference on Swarm Intelligence and Cooperative Control
EditorsZhang Ren, Yongzhao Hua, Mengyi Wang
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages189-199
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9789811939976
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event5th Chinese Conference on Swarm Intelligence and Cooperative Control, CCSICC 2021 - Shenzhen, China
Duration: 19 Jan 202222 Jan 2022

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Electrical Engineering
Volume934 LNEE
ISSN (Print)1876-1100
ISSN (Electronic)1876-1119

Conference

Conference5th Chinese Conference on Swarm Intelligence and Cooperative Control, CCSICC 2021
Country/TerritoryChina
CityShenzhen
Period19/01/2222/01/22

Keywords

  • Distributed decision-making
  • Hardware-in-the-loop
  • Simulation platform
  • UAV swarm

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