Pulse Coupled Oscillators for Drone-to-Drone Synchronisation

Michael Breza, Julie McCann

Keywords: robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, communication, protocols

TL;DR: An example of a Pulse Coupled Oscillator protocol for decentralised drone-to-drone communication.

Abstract:

The autonomous operation of drone swarms cur-
rently poses a challenge due the limited bandwidth and reliability
of drone-to-drone or drone-to-controller communication. In this
paper we present a decentralised drone-to-drone communication
algorithm for synchronisation that uses a mesh network topology.
Current approaches use centralised control and communication
organised in a star topology that prevents drone-to-drone commu-
nication. This poses a single point of control an communication
failure and scalability problems. Drone-to-drone communication
organised as a mesh network is a viable option that could increase
swarm autonomy and resilience to communication failure. In this
paper we propose the Epoch Synchronisation with Pulse Coupled
Oscillators (ESPCO) distributed algorithm for decentralised
synchronisation. We design, implement, and demonstrate a Pulse
Coupled Oscillator based agreement protocol that is decentralised
and robust to individual drone failure.