Distributed Consensus to Enable Merging and Spacing of UAS in an Urban Environment

This paper presents a novel approach to enable multiple Unmanned Aerial Systems approaching a common intersection to independently schedule their arrival time while maintaining a safe separation. Aircraft merging at a common intersection are grouped into a network and each aircraft broadcasts its arrival time interval to the network. A distributed consensus algorithm elects a leader among the aircraft approaching the intersection and helps synchronize the information received by each aircraft. The consensus algorithm ensures that each aircraft computes a schedule with the same input information. The elected leader also dictates when a schedule must be computed, which may be triggered when a new aircraft joins the network. Preliminary results illustrating the collaborative behavior of the vehicles are presented.