Alignment Method for Flocking Swarm on Search and Rescue Mission

For a search and rescue mission, a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicle has significant potential in providing lifesaving support for people in distress. One of the required capabilities for the search and rescue mission is the maximum coverage area using the available unmanned aerial vehicles. Therefore, this article proposes improving the flocking mechanism of the swarm to achieve the goal. The initial mechanism is flock centering, attraction, and repulsion. Then, an alignment method is introduced to expand the collective search area. In this approach, all unmanned aerial vehicles’ potential field and centroid alignment is formulated to form a straight formation and minimal overlapping coverage. As a result, the behavior shows improvement in coverage area compared to regular flocking behavior. Moreover, the results also show that the alignment method takes benefit of number of swarm member in covering searching area.