Development and Simulation of an Algorithm for UAV Swarm Coordination and Collision Avoidance

Abstract:

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is increasing as their usage enhance many activities in our modern world. These include their specific roles in warfare, surveillance, agricultural activities, entertainments with attendant economic importance. In areas grappling with insecurity challenges due to banditry, kidnappings, oil spillage and theft, farmers and herdsmen clashes, utilizing more than one UAV in an area for surveillance is not only good but more advantageous. If many UAVs are used in an area at the same time, they are termed swarm or group of UAVs. Their operations in this manner, are seen as more scalable and reliable mode of using UAVs in current and future applications. Thus, usage of multiple UAVs that operate together as a cohesive unit are redundant and scalable, performing tasks that would be challenging or inefficient for a single UAV to accomplish. However, operating a group of UAVs as one unit can become expensive and risky if they are not properly coordinated. The UAVs may collide, causing catastrophic damage and requiring costly repairs. The need for autonomous coordination therefore comes from the vast number of vehicles, which might be intrinsic members of the system as a whole. Also, all UAVs in the swarm are to contribute to the effective execution of task without wasting resources. These imply that an intelligent coordination algorithm that implements awareness for swarm UAVs to avoid risky states is required. This paper presents the development and implementation of an algorithm for intra-swarm collision avoidance by treating each UAV in a swarm unit as individual agent capable of a homogenous number of tasks modelled as contours using their field of view and received signal strength indication.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volume 935)
• Pages: 91-120
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-VQ8Eyx
• Online since: April 2026
• Authors: Samuel David Iyaghigba*, Oluwatumise Shadrack Asere, Abdussalam El-Suleiman, Akanimo Jimmy Ukim, Sadiq Thomas
• Keywords: Agent, Algorithm, Avoidance, Collision, Quadcopter, Region, Swarm, UAV

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