Open Access

ARTICLE

Thermodynamics Inspired Co-operative Self-Organization of Multiple Autonomous Vehicles

by Ayesha Maqbool^1,*, Farkhanda Afzal², Tauseef Rana³, Alina Mirza⁴

1 DCS, NBC, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islambad, Pakistan
2 H&BS,MCS, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islambad, Pakistan
3 CSE, MCS, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islambad, Pakistan
4 EE, MCS, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan

* Corresponding Author: Ayesha Maqbool. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Nature Inspired Computing for Intelligent Vehicular Network)

Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing 2021, 28(3), 653-667. https://doi.org/10.32604/iasc.2021.017506

Received 29 January 2021; Accepted 03 March 2021; Issue published 20 April 2021

Abstract

This paper presents a co-operative, self-organisation method for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles aiming to share surveillance responsibilities. Spatial organization or formation configuration of multiple vehicles/agents’ systems is crucial for a team of agents to achieve their mission objectives. In this paper we present simple yet efficient thermodynamic inspired formation control framework. The proposed method autonomously allocates region of surveillance to each vehicle and also re-adjusts the area of their responsibilities during the mission. It provides framework for heterogeneous UAVs to scatter themselves optimally in order to provide maximum coverage of a given area. The method is inspired from a natural phenomenon of thermodynamics and presents a flexible and efficient mechanism for co-operative team formation. The idea here is to model the system as a collection of heat generating bodies and to maintain the constant system temperature across the system by introducing appropriate separation among vehicles. We also present the behavour of the algorithm with the communication constraint. The proposed method achieves special allocation objectives, even with constraint communication. It is further shown that the method can easily be adopted to arbitrary configurations according to mission requirements and team configuration. This co-operative decision making of allocating mission responsibilities by self-organising a team of vehicles adds to the overall autonomy of the Multi-vehicular system.

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Citations