Rogue Agent Identification and Collision Avoidance in Formation Flights using Potential Fields

In this paper, an artificial potential field based technique is proposed for maintaining a formation of drones, for identifying rogue drones, and for avoiding collision with obstacles and rogue drones. Rogue drone identification is done by using a threshold potential value which is also used to identify the threat level of neighbouring drones. A novel assistive potential field concept is introduced to implement a collision avoidance strategy that helps the formation to avoid collision with the rogue drone as well as other obstacles. A pair of hyperplanes are defined using which the repulsive forces are generated. Simulations are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach.