Communication and Motion Coordination Awareness in Networked Aerial Robot Teams

Implementing Networked Aerial Robot Teams (NARTs), such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms and UAV-based networks, is a multidisciplinary scientific topic with several high-value contributions from distinct backgrounds. Such complex systems contain several components, such as communication protocols, swarm coordination algorithms, sensor integration and mission planning strategies. Developing and deploying NARTs in real-world environments often requires balancing these components, which can result in focusing on specific aspects while simplifying others. The large diversity of current contributions in this area and the constant performance improvements are bringing us closer to realising intelligent, efficient, secure, reliable, and adaptable aerial robot networks. Therefore, a comprehensive, unified analysis can help frame recent literature and draw important conclusions for the future improvement of these systems. This paper proposes a novel framework for NART literature classification based on communication and motion coordination awareness criteria. This framework is then used to perform an extensive survey, analysis and categorisation of the state of the art of NARTs . On one hand, over 50% of the categorised works presented enough awareness to enable the implementation of dynamic procedures regarding Communication (63%) and Motion Coordination (54%). On another hand, only 17% of the analysed works presented the highest level of awareness in one of the NART components. Future research challenges regarding the integration of these two components will also be identified.