Self-organizing strategy design and validation for integrated air-ground detection swarm

A self-organized integrated air-ground detection swarm is tentatively applied to achieve reentry vehicle landing detection, such as searching and rescuing a manned spaceship. The detection swarm consists of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The UAVs can access a detected object quickly for high mobility, while the UGVs can comprehensively investigate the object due to the variety of carried equipment. In addition, the integrated air-ground detection swarm is capable of detecting from the ground and the air simultaneously. To accomplish the coordination of the UGVs and UAVs, they are all regarded as individuals of the artificial swarm. Those individuals make control decisions independently of others based on the self-organizing strategy. The overall requirements for the detection swarm are analyzed, and the theoretical model of the self-organizing strategy based on a combined individual and environmental virtual function is established. The numerical investigation proves that the self-organizing strategy is suitable and scalable to control the detection swarm. To further inspect the engineering reliability, an experiment set is established in laboratory, and the experimental demonstration shows that the self-organizing strategy drives the detection swarm forming a close range and multiangular surveillance configuration of a landing spot.