APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING DRONE FORMATION

• US 20180373240A1
• Filed: 12/13/2017
• Published: 12/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Korea University Research and Business Foundation (Korea University)
• Original Assignee: Korea University Research and Business Foundation (Korea University)
• Inventors: Kim, Hwang Nam, La, Woong Gyu, Yoo, Seung Ho, Park, Seong Joon, Lee, Joon Yeop
• Granted Patent: US 10,591,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2201/102 adapted for flying in formations
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 2201/20 Remote controls
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0027 involving a plurality of vehicles, e.g. fleet or convoy travelling fleet control of land vehicles from a control room G05D1/0297; traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/00; for marine craft G08G3/00; for aircraft G08G5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/104 involving a plurality of aircrafts, e.g. formation flying traffic control systems for aircraft G08G5/00

Abstract

A drone formation control apparatus for controlling a plurality of drones included in a drone formation includes: an input unit which receives a drone control command which is a command for controlling the plurality of drones together; a movement command generating unit which generates a drone movement command which is a command to move the plurality of drones to a specific destination, based on the drone control command; and a movement command transmitting unit which transmits the drone movement command to at least one drone of the plurality of drones.

Claims

1. A drone formation control apparatus for controlling a plurality of drones included in a drone formation, the apparatus comprising:

an input unit which receives a drone control command which is a command for controlling the plurality of drones together;

a movement command generating unit which generates a drone movement command which is a command for moving the plurality of drones to a specific destination, based on the drone control command; and

a movement command transmitting unit which transmits the drone movement command to at least one drone of the plurality of drones.

2. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the input unit receives the drone control command from an external RC controller and the movement command transmitting unit relays the drone control command to each of the plurality of drones.

3. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a network generating unit which generates a drone control network which includes the plurality of drones and controls the plurality of drones.

4. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the movement command generating unit generates the drone movement command further based on a current coordinate of each of the plurality of drones received through the drone control network and the movement command transmitting unit transmits the drone movement command to each of the plurality of drones.

5. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising:

a master drone determining unit which determines at least one drone among the plurality of drones included in the drone control network as a mater drone, based on a predetermined criteria.

6. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 5, wherein

the movement command generating unit generates the drone movement command further based on a current coordinate of each of the plurality of drones received through the drone control network,

the movement command transmitting unit transmits the drone movement command to the master drone, and

the master drone transmits the drone movement command to each of the remaining drones excluding the master drone among the plurality of drones included in the drone control network.

7. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the master drone determining unit determines at least one drone of a drone having a broadest communication range among the plurality of drones, a drone having a longest remaining flight time among the plurality of drones, a drone which may be capable of using the most communication resources among the plurality of drones, and a drone which is the closest to a center of the drone formation among the plurality of drones as the master drone.

8. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the drone movement command includes an individual destination coordinate which is a coordinate of each of the plurality of drones corresponding to the specific destination and the individual destination coordinates are calculated based on a current representative coordinate (x_center^init, y_center^init, z_center^init) of the drone formation determined according to the predetermined criteria, an x-axis variation x^diff of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, a y-axis variation y^diff of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, a z-axis variation z^diff of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, a rotational amount θ

^diff of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, and a current relative coordinate (x_i^rel, y_i^rel, z_i^rel) of each of the plurality of drones with respect to the current representative coordinate of the drone formation.

9. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the drone movement command includes an individual destination coordinate which is a coordinate of each of the plurality of drones corresponding to the specific destination and the individual destination coordinate is calculated based on the following Equation 7.

z_i^dest=x_center^init+x^diff+(x_i^rel·

cos(θ

^diff)+y_i^rel·

sin(θ

^diff))

y_i^dest=y_center^init+y^diff+(x_i^rel·

sin(θ

^diff)+y_i^rel·

cos(θ

^diff))

z_i^dest=z_center^init+z^diff+z_i^rel  

 

[Equation 7]

In this case, (x_i^dest, y_i^dest, z_i^dest) is the individual destination coordinate of an i-th drone included in the drone formation and (x_center^init, y_center^init, z_center^init) is a current representative coordinate of the drone formation determined according to a predetermined criteria, x^diff is an x-axis variation of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, y^diff is a y-axis variation of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, z^diff is a z-axis variation of the representative coordinate of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, θ

^diff is a rotational amount of the drone formation to move to the specific destination, and (x_i^rel, y_i^rel, z_i^rel) means a current relative coordinate of the i-th drone with respect to the current representative coordinate of the drone formation.

10. The drone formation control apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the drone formation control apparatus is mounted in the master drone.

11. A drone formation control method for controlling a drone formation by utilizing a drone formation control apparatus which controls a plurality of drones included in a drone formation, the method, comprising:

receiving a drone control command which is a command for controlling the plurality of drones together, by an input unit;

generating a drone movement command which is a command for moving the plurality of drones to a specific destination, based on the drone control command, by a movement command generating unit; and

transmitting the drone movement command to at least one drone of the plurality of drones, by a movement command transmitting unit.

12. The drone formation control method according to claim 11, further comprising:

generating a drone control network which includes the plurality of drones and controls the plurality of drones, by a network generating unit.

13. The drone formation control method according to claim 12, further comprising:

determining at least one drone among the plurality of drones included in the drone control network as a mater drone, based on a predetermined criteria, by a master drone determining unit.