Caelus concept is a discussion to understanding a Layered Drone Control Environment and the layers of operation for shared processing that make up the Drone Swarm.
This concept has been named for Caelus, the Roman primal god of the sky, to portray aerial superiority, through shared processing of individual parts and the interaction of multiple control tiers.
The ongoing series of publications aim to discuss the technical capabilities and limitations through the use of Mechatronic Intelligence — Electronic, Mechanic, and Software — by the shared processing of individual parts that make up a greater Intelligent system, known as swarm logic.
Caelus concept has been divided into two layers to distinguish between the smaller, local area group processing, and the larger higher processing and control. While both layers interact with each other, each will address specific crossovers where they relate.
Drone Swarm
Shared processing of logic utilizing individual drone sensory input and specific drone specialization to form a greater “swarm mind”, in order to achieve shared tasks and communication as a group.
Overmind
Higher shared-processing control tier for strategic processing and transmission of task objectives to drone swarm.
Drone Tiers
UAV Drones can be classified by a broad number of performance characteristics.
Aspects such as weight, endurance, range, speed and wing loading are important specifications that distinguish different types of UAVs and give rise to useful classification systems. The cost, wing span, maximum altitude, engine type and maximum power are also features which can be considered to compare and classify UAVs.
All UAVs considered in the further discussions are presented in the following classification table, which are based on their physical size, range/altitude and endurance capabilities. The tiers do not refer to specific drone types but rather their ability to be used in integrated operations or environments.
Physical Size
- Micro/Small, is any drone where the body of the drone including wingspan is smaller than and up to 1 meter diameter
- Medium, is any drone where the body of the drone including wingspan is larger than 1 meter in diameter and is no larger than 3 meters in diameter.
- Large, is any drone where the body of the drone including wingspan is larger than 3 meter in diameter.
Endurance
- Limited endurance, is any drone that has a limited operational lifespan, such as micro/small and medium drones that operate on full electric motors without petrol or alternate based power source and can only operate for a maximum of 30 minutes or any lifespan less.
- Medium endurance, is any drone that has an operational lifespan of more than 30 minutes and less than and including 2 hours. This usually includes drones that operate fully electric motors as well as petrol powered and hybrid motor systems.
- Long endurance, is any drone that has an operational life span of more than 2 hours and less than and including 3 days. This generally includes petrol powered and alternate powered drones, commonly fixed wing.
- Extended endurance, is any drone that has an operational lifespan of more than 3 days. This generally includes large drones that operate alternate power technology — fuel cell, nuclear, etc — large high altitude cruise drones and geostationary & low earth orbit satellites.
Altitude
- Low altitude, is any drone that flies up to 2,000 ft (600 m).
- Medium altitude, is any drone with a maximum altitude of 30,000 ft (9,100 m).
- High altitude, is all drones that can fly over 30,000 ft (9,100 m) as well as suborbital and low earth orbit altitudes.
Swarm Concept
For the purposes of this Caelus concept, swarm explanations will be based on Tier 0 to Tier III combined abilities (close to medium range, long endurance), aerial multi-rotor drones.
Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a coordinated behaviour of large groups which aggregate together, usually exhibited by animals of similar size, by extension, the term swarm is applied also to inanimate entities which exhibit parallel behaviour.
A Drone Swarm is a coordination of multi-robot systems which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical autonomous or semi-autonomous robots, displaying a collective behaviour from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment.
The following is a list of topics and sections that will be covered. As articles are added this section will be updated to incorporate the new articles as an index.
Communication
- Swarm Forming
- Drone awareness
- Swarm awareness
- communication of “skill set” & specialist skills
- communication security.
Swarm Task Processing
- receive task objective
- operational boundaries / geo-fencing and sensory
- evaluate skill sets
- form task groups (swarm subgroups Alpha[task performers] and beta[redundancy] )
- Task Operation
- start task
- evaluate progress
- end task
Drone Hive: Life-cycle, Power and redundancy concepts
- self-monitored power
- return to base recharge/refill
- power / life-cycle based swarm manoeuvres
- mobile recharge stations
Drone Brain Breakdown
- Motor/Aerial control
- Sensory and swarm
- Environmental reaction
- Base Drone “skill set”
- Specialist “skill set” extra sensory/tooling
