VG-Swarm: A Vision-Based Gene Regulation Network for UAVs Swarm Behavior Emergence

We present VG-Swarm, a practical and effective method for aerial robots dynamic encirclement, which consists of a vision-based gene regulatory network (V-GRN) and a visual perception module. For each flying robot deployed with the proposed method, the relative spatial positions of the surrounding robots, targets, and obstacles are first obtained by omnidirectional monocular vision. Then the proposed method is used to generate the concentration field within its own perception range according to the obtained position information. The agent individually calculates and selects an optimal moving direction in its concentration field, and finally stays on its selected encirclement pattern (a closed concentration contour around the target). As a result, a swarm of flying robots can emerge adaptive pattern formations to entrap the targets even without any communication and global information. We verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method in various simulations and real-world experiments.