Flight Patterns for Swarms of Drones

Abstract

We present flight patterns for a collision-free passage of swarms of drones through one or more openings. The narrow openings provide drones with access to an infrastructure component such as charging stations to charge their depleted batteries and hangars for storage. The flight patterns are a staging area (queues) that match the rate at which an infrastructure component and its openings process drones. They prevent collisions and may implement different policies that control the order in which drones pass through an opening. We illustrate the flight patterns with a 3D display that uses drones configured with light sources to illuminate shapes.