Appl. Sci. 2017, 7(7), 729; doi:10.3390/app7070729
Data-Foraging-Oriented Reconnaissance Based on Bio-Inspired Indirect Communication for Aerial Vehicles
1
Department of Computer Science, Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Tonantzintla, Puebla 72840, México
2
CNRS, LAAS, 7 Avenue du Colonel Roche, F-31400 Toulouse, France
3
Université de Toulouse, LAAS, F-31400 Toulouse, France
4
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Av. Insurgentes Sur 1582, Col. Crédito ConstructorDel. Benito Juárez C.P.: 03940, Ciudad de México
5
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (UMSNH), Morelia 58040, México
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 31 May 2017 / Revised: 9 July 2017 / Accepted: 12 July 2017 / Published: 16 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bio-Inspired Robotics)
Abstract
In recent years, aerial vehicles have allowed exploring scenarios with harsh conditions. These can conduct reconnaissance tasks in areas that change periodically and have a high spatial and temporal resolution. The objective of a reconnaissance task is to survey an area and retrieve strategic information. The aerial vehicles, however, have inherent constraints in terms of energy and transmission range due to their mobility. Despite these constraints, the Data Foraging problem requires the aerial vehicles to exchange information about profitable data sources. In Data Foraging, establishing a single path is not viable because of dynamic conditions of the environment. Thus, reconnaissance must be focused on periodically searching profitable environmental data sources, as some animals perform foraging. In this work, a data-foraging-oriented reconnaissance algorithm based on bio-inspired indirect communication for aerial vehicles is presented. The approach establishes several paths that overlap to identify valuable data sources. Inspired by the stigmergy principle, the aerial vehicles indirectly communicate through artificial pheromones. The aerial vehicles traverse the environment using a heuristic algorithm that uses the artificial pheromones as feedback. The solution is formally defined and mathematically evaluated. In addition, we show the viability of the algorithm by simulations which have been tested through various statistical hypothesis. View Full-TextKeywords:
data foraging; reconnaissance; bio-inspired indirect communication; graph exploration; interruptibility
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Castañeda Cisneros, J.; Pomares Hernandez, S.E.; Perez Cruz, J.R.; Rodríguez-Henríquez, L.M.; Gonzalez Bernal, J.A. Data-Foraging-Oriented Reconnaissance Based on Bio-Inspired Indirect Communication for Aerial Vehicles. Appl. Sci. 2017, 7, 729.
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