Vehicle-to-Vehicle Based Autonomous Flight Coordination Control System for Safer Operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Lin Shan,
Ryu Miura,
Takashi Matsuda,
Miho Koshikawa,
Huan-Bang Li,
Takeshi Matsumura
Affiliations
Lin Shan
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
Ryu Miura
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
Takashi Matsuda
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
Miho Koshikawa
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
Huan-Bang Li
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
Takeshi Matsumura
Wireless Systems Laboratory, Wireless Networks Research Center, Network Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT): 3-4, Hikarino Oka, Yokosuka 239-0847, Kanagawa, Japan
The exponential growth of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones in recent years has raised concerns about their safe operation, especially in beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) scenarios. Existing unmanned aircraft system traffic management (UTM) heavily relies on commercial communication networks, which may become ineffective if network infrastructures are damaged or disabled. For this challenge, we propose a novel approach that leverages vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications to enhance UAV safety and efficiency in UAV operations. In this study, we present a UAV information collection and sharing system named Drone Mapper®, enabled by V2V communications, so that UAVs can share their locations with each another as well as with the ground operation station. Additionally, we introduce an autonomous flight coordination control system (AFCCS) that augments UAV safety operations by providing two essential functionalities: UAV collision avoidance and UAV formation flight, both of which work based on V2V communications. To evaluate the performance of the developed AFCCS, we conducted comprehensive field experiments focusing on UAV collision avoidance and formation flight. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system and show seamless operations among multiple UAVs.
