Thermal Motion Equivalent Method Application for Multicopter Swarm in Exploration Task

The paper investigates the exploration issue by a swarm of quadrocopters. The thermal motion equivalent method is used for agents moving. The solution evaluation criterion is the swarm exploration time of more than 95% of an area square in case of limited inter-agent communication and partial agents' failure (lost). For comparison, a well-known rational-formed solution (called far as trivial) to the exploration issue is given. It consists of each agent disjoint trajectories planning at the swarm launch time. The trajectories' structure takes into account the agent field of view and covers the entire territory. The paper presents a mathematical model of the quadrocopter dynamics and thermal motion equivalent method. The exploration efficiency by a swarm using the thermal motion method depends, among other things, on the initial velocity vector direction. The paper presents the results of swarm simulation. The thermal motion equivalent method generally increases the exploration efficiency in conditions of limited communication and a decrease in the swarm number. However, in some cases, the exploration time is higher than in a trivial solution.