Communication-based Swarming for Flying Robots

We aim at implementing a swarm of Micro-Air-Vehicles for creating communication networks (SMAVNETs) in disaster areas. For this purpose, we propose strategies for steering flying robots using only communication hardware (e.g. WiFi module or radio modem) and a magnetic compass instead of location information derived from GPS or cameras. Because there is no deterministic methodology for the design of swarm controllers, we take inspiration from biology to implement controllers based on ant-foraging or resulting from artificial evolution. Finally, we show first steps towards the deployment of aerial ad-hoc networks in reality.