Designing Multi-Agent Drone Networks and Applications with the University at Buffalo's Airborne Networking and Communications Testbed

The 2017-18 Visiting Scholar Seminar Series is funded by College Association

When: March 22, 2018 from 12:30-1:50pm
Where: G152, Donovan Hall
Who: Prof Nicholas Mastronarde from the University at Buffalo
POC at SUNY Poly: Prof Michael Medley

Abstract: 
Recent advances in rotorcraft design, multi-rotor vehicle control, miniaturization of hardware, sensing, and battery technologies have enabled cheap, practical design of micro air vehicles (MAVs) for civilian and hobby applications. In parallel, several applications are being envisioned that bring together networks of MAVs to accomplish large tasks by coordinating with each other. Despite these advancements, and new FAA rules governing their use, it is still very challenging to experiment with multiple networked MAVs. To mitigate these challenges, we have developed an open software/hardware platform called the University at Buffalo's Airborne Networking and Communications Testbed (UB-ANC), which comprises three open-source projects: UB-ANC Drone, UB-ANC Emulator, and UB-ANC Planner. Our goal is to design, implement, and test MAV networking applications in simulation, and provide seamless transition to deployment.

UB-ANC Drone provides a flexible drone platform for network and robotics researchers to test and evaluate different networking protocols and mission planning algorithms on actual drones. UB-ANC Emulator provides a virtual environment for researchers to evaluate different algorithms in software and seamlessly transfer them to actual hardware (UB-ANC Drone). Finally, using these two platforms, we developed UB-ANC Planner, which is an energy-efficient coverage path planner that aims to minimize the maximum energy consumption across drones as they search an arbitrary area with obstacles. In this talk, we motivate the need for the UB-ANC platform, describe its design, and summarize our experiences with it.