Mission Specification and Execution of Multidrone Systems
Markus Gutmanna and Bernhard Rinnerb
Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems University of Klagenfurt, Austria
amarkus.gutmann@aau.at
bbernhard.rinner@aau.at
ABSTRACT
Small unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones, enable novel applications in many domains. Multidrone systems are a current key trend where several drones operate collectively as an integrated networked autonomous system to complete various missions. The specification and execution of multidrone missions are particularly challenging, since substantial expertise of the mission domain, the drone’s capabilities, and the drones’ software environment is required to properly encode the mission. In this position paper, we introduce a specification language for multidrone missions and describe the transcoding of its components into the multidrone execution environment for both simulations and real drones. The key features of our approach include (i) domain-independence of the mission specification, (ii) readability and ease of use, and (iii) expandability. The specification language has a simple syntax and uses a parameterized description of execution blocks and mission capabilities, which are derived from native drone functions. Domain-independence and expandability are provided by a clear separation between the specification and the implementation of the mission tasks. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with a selected multidrone mission example.
