TY - JOUR
T1 - A Communication-State Adaptive Coordination Framework for UAV Swarm Tracking in Congested Networks
AU - Hans Müller
AU - Anna Schmidt
AU - Thomas Weber
JF - Journal of Intelligent Agriculture and Food Systems
Y1 - 2022
VL - 1
IS - 1
SP - 47
N2 - Swarm-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems are increasingly recognized for their capabilities in extensive IoT and precision agriculture operations, notably in collaborative surveillance and the tracking of multiple moving objects across outdoor terrains. Nevertheless, prevailing coordination mechanisms tend to assume flawless communication channels, disregarding practical network disturbances including congestion, dropped packets, and transmission delays. Such disruptions hinder the prompt relay of data among UAVs and the terrestrial control station, causing control instructions to arrive late or not at all. The outcome is a breakdown in coordination fidelity and a steep decline in tracking effectiveness when these systems are fielded. To remedy this shortcoming, we put forward CSOOC (Communication-State Driven Online–Offline Coordination with Congestion Control), a hybrid governance scheme that fuses centralized learning-powered decision processes with decentralized rule-governed behaviors, enabling UAVs to tailor their actions to instantaneous network status. The CSOOC framework is built around three core elements: (1) an online component providing centralized orchestration while communication remains dependable, (2) an offline, profit-guided movement policy relying on localized Gaussian maps to sustain autonomous target pursuit when connectivity drops, and (3) congestion mitigation rooted in STAR (Stratified Transmission and RTS/CTS), which couples staggered transmission timing with RTS/CTS handshake protocols to bolster uplink robustness. A cohesive co-simulation infrastructure is constructed, linking network-layer communication with swarm-level control and coordination dynamics. Trials reveal that CSOOC delivers a mean observation ratio of 39.7%, outperforming reference algorithms by margins of 4.4%–11.13%, while also boosting network dependability through markedly improved packet delivery success under saturated channel conditions. These outcomes confirm that CSOOC successfully spans the disconnect between algorithm performance within simulators and the operational realities of UAV collectives in communication-challenged settings.
UR - https://airpublications.com/q169974923
ER -