The Ecole Polytechnic Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland is developing swarms of flying robots that could be deployed in disaster areas to create communication networks for rescuers. The Swarming Micro Air Vehicle Network (SMAVNET) project comprises of robust, lightweight robots and software that allows the devices to wirelessly communicate with each other.
The flying robots
were built out of expanded polypropylene with a single motor at the
rear and two elevons (control surfaces that enable steering). The robots
are equipped with autopilot to control altitude, airspeed and turn
rate. A micro-controller operates using three sensors — a gyroscope and
two pressure sensors. The robots also have a GPS module to log flight
journeys.
The swarm
controllers running Linux are connected to an off-the-shelf USB Wi-Fi
dongle. The output of these (the desired turn rate, speed or altitude)
is sent to the autopilot.
For the swarming, robots react to wireless communication with either neighbouring robots or rescuers, rather than relying on GPS
or other positioning sensors that might be unreliable, impractical or
expensive. Software algorithms that know where other nearby bots are can
stop them from crashing into each other.
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Designing
swarm controllers is generally quite challenging because there is no
clear relationship between the individual robot behaviour and the
resultant behaviour of the whole swarm. The researchers therefore looked
to biology for the answer.
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