Petri Net Models for the Performance and Design of Persistent Drone Light Shows: An Abridgment

Despite their versatility and promise, UAVs suffer from flight duration constraints that hinder their use in prolonged operations. In the context of drone light shows, the capability for persistent operations has the potential to transform their transitory beauty into an enduring attraction. To study the resources required to achieve a perpetual drone light show, Petrinets are used to model a collection of resources including fleets of UAVs, batteries, and chargers. This model structure addresses limitations of the show coordination software and communication channels by handing the responsibility for providing lights in the sky from one collection of resources to another. Foundational Petri net results are exploited to assess the system coverage with given resources and determine the minimal number of resources required to achieve a target performance level.