Impact of Communication Path Loss to Unmanned Aircraft Swarm Coherency

This work examines the impact of communicative path loss to the coherency of Unmanned Aircraft (UA) swarms within constrained, urban environments. Within swarm formations, UAs must remain close enough to communicate their position to other swarm constituents while maintaining sufficient separation to avoid collision. We analyze the tension between these two separation considerations, comparing different communication protocols and trajectory planning algorithms. With these considerations, we demonstrate the impact of increased swarm sizes on swarm coherence.