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Tech Briefs

Effectiveness of Inter-Vehicle Communications and
On-Board Processing for Close Unmanned Autonomous
Vehicle Flight Formations

Developing an effective cooperative communication system for unmanned aerial vehicles can increase
their autonomy, reduce manpower requirements, and improve mission capabilities.
Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

ince World War II the military has The information shared may be a variety • How to integrate commercial off-the-
Sinvested in research and develop- of data, such as navigation parameters; shelf (COTS) on-board processing for
ment of vehicles that can be operated location information; or Intelligence, cooperative control;
by remote control or Artificial Intelli- Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). • Performance improvement for air-
gence (AI), taking the pilot out of po- The capability to cooperatively navigate borne onboard processing versus
tentially dangerous situations. These ve- presents an opportunity to increase au- ground-based processing; and
hicles are also known as Unmanned tonomy in UAVs. Autonomy in UAVs en- • Which new applications are possible
Aircraft Systems (UAS), Unmanned Air- ables them to process data on-board for low-cost airborne autonomy.
borne Vehicles (UAV), Unmanned while they are airborne in order to com- The Unmanned Systems Integrated
Ground Vehicles (UGVs), and Drones, municate with one another without the Roadmap FY2011-2036 has a vision
among other names. need to relay information through a which encourages the use of COTS to
Industry has also recognized the im- ground station. avoid stove-piped and proprietary solu-
portance these vehicles have for military The ability for several UAVs to work tions which are expensive; it suggests
and commercial implementation and together in an autonomous manner that inexpensive open-source COTS
has done a great deal to advance the using cooperative communication has a components can foster creativity and
technology. Educational institutions myriad of military applications, includ- innovation. This Roadmap’s executive
have also come to understand the signif- ing enemy or target detection, confu- summary identifies autonomy as the
icance of this major work and commit- sion effect, resource balancing, duty re- second highest challenge facing the De-
ted time, money, and intellectual re- lief, and centralized information. The partment of Defense (DoD) with regards
sources into UAS development. Recent demand for UAVs has exploded since to unmanned systems and confirms
technology improvements and compo- they were first introduced; however, that today’s technology requires a high
nent miniaturization have increased the there is still a lack of understanding and level of human interaction.
technical capabilities of small UAS. knowledge regarding: The United States Air Force Un-
Cooperative communication in UAVs • Which open source components can manned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan
is the ability to send information be- be integrated to achieve airborne co- 2009-2047 mentions a plan to develop a
tween multiple UAVs in the air working operative control for military applica- UAS pilot career in order to relieve the
together for a unified purpose or mission. tions; UAS manpower burden. The goal is to
have a single pilot control one, two, or
Cooperative Communication even a swarm of autonomous UAS vehi-
Proposed Configuration
On-board processing cles. One solution is developing the ca-
pability for cooperative communication
Leader to control multiple UAVs and reduce the
number of operators required to execute
Follower
Delay UAS missions. Use of open- source COTS
components to realize this capability
Delay Current Configuration presents a low-cost and flexible solution.
The ultimate purpose of this research
was to enable two UAVs to use coopera-
Telemetry Data
tive communication directly from one
UAV to the other UAV, using the ground
station only as a monitoring link, but
not as the main relay for communica-
tion. Another purpose was to streamline
Delay UAS Ground Station the equipment required and thus re-
UAS Ground Station duce communication latency and im-
UAS Ground Station
prove responsiveness; responsiveness is
Cooperative Communication Proposed Configuration important in dynamic environments.

22 www.aerodefensetech.com Aerospace & Defense Technology, May 2020