We present an opportunistic method to comman-deer already-flying UAVs for herding malfunctioning UAVs to safety. Malfunctioning UAVs, which deviate from their path due to a planning or a communication failure, pose a safety risk, and it is important to develop methods for mitigating that risk in various circumstances. Here we focus on the case when the Defender (e.g. the airport authority or provider of service) cannot deploy its own UAVs, and taking down the malfunctioning UAV poses an unacceptable risk to people on the ground. In such a case, we propose that the Defender commandeer other flying UAVs to herd the malfunctioning UAV to safety by temporarily spoofing their state estimate. Leveraging Remote ID (a new FAA requirement for UAVs) and existing methods for spoofing state estimation, the Defender dynamically adapts its herding to the evolving situation, effectively guiding malfunctioning UAVs away from restricted airspace or sensitive zones. Our results, validated through extensive simulations (studying multiple herder and target configurations) and small-scale real-world experiments, demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in mitigating UAV intrusion incidents and enhancing airspace security.
OUT-HERD: Opportunistic UAV Takeover for Herding Malfunctioning Drones
2024-09-24
4480884 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
SPECIALIZED CONTEXTUAL DRONES FOR ANIMAL VIRTUAL FENCES AND HERDING
European Patent Office | 2018
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