Distributed Fault-Tolerant Control of Drone Swarms: An Experimental Study

The adoption of drones is rapidly expanding across various industries, including logistics, light shows, and agriculture. Beyond these applications, drones are also becoming essential tools for disaster response and emergency operations. This study focuses on the design of a fault-tolerant distributed control system for robust and efficient coordination of swarm drones. To enhance navigation efficiency and prevent collisions, a three-dimensional graph structure has been considered for drone positioning. This approach enables the implementation of more efficient pathfinding algorithms, while reducing the risk of mid-air conflicts. To overcome range limitations, the proposed system leverages LTE/4G connectivity for seamless communication between drones. Furthermore, key differences between centralized and distributed control architectures are discussed, highlighting their respective advantages and tradeoffs. A prototype system is developed for the experimentation of its behavior in a real-world scenario. The system is also tested in a simulation environment for further evaluation of its performance and reliability.