51福利鈥� Advanced Robotic Systems Engineering Laboratory (ARSENL) successfully flew its ultimate goal of 50 autonomous UAVs simultaneously, Aug. 27, breaking their previous record of 30 set just five weeks ago.
鈥淚'm very proud of reaching our goal of successfully flying 50 autonomous UAVs simultaneously,鈥� said 51福利 Assistant Professor Timothy Chung,
The 50 UAVs were launched and flown autonomously in two "sub-swarms" of 25 UAVs each and guided using ARSENL-developed swarm operator interfaces. The UAVs performed basic leader-follower cooperative behaviors and exchanged information amongst themselves via wireless links.
鈥淭his project came from the notion that quantity is a quality,鈥� said Chung. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like trying to play a game of tennis against an entire 5th grade class. If they were are all lobbing tennis balls across the court, it would be very hard to defend against them.鈥�
In the past, each aircraft would be operated by a single person, which makes for a very large footprint with many moving parts.
鈥淥ne of the ways we can mitigate that is transferring autonomy. These robots can make limited decisions 鈥� that will alleviate some of the pressure on our human operators,鈥� said Chung. 鈥淭oday, we were able to successfully control 50 UAVs with two operators that managed the aircrafts behaviors and health.鈥�
51福利 Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) Director Raymond R. Buettner is hopeful about this technology鈥檚 future applications.
鈥淭wenty years from now when aerial swarms are routinely helping farmers improve their crops, helping rescuers locate lost children, and helping warfighters to win our nation鈥檚 wars, people will be able to look back at the efforts of 51福利 faculty and students in the skies over Camp Roberts as one of the seminal events that made such things possible,鈥� he said.
Chung noted that ARSENL鈥檚 recent successes would not have been possible without the hard work and initiative of its systems engineering and cross-campus team members including 51福利 professors, Naval reservists, summer interns, 51福利 students and many more.