Protection of moving targets using a drone swarm

Authors

  • Salvador Zaragoza-Noguera Centro Universitario de la Defensa (CUD)
  • María Guinaldo UNED
  • José Sánchez-Moreno UNED

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17979/ja-cea.2025.46.12181

Keywords:

Autonomous systems, Cooperative navigation, Decentralized Control and Systems, Motion control, Multi-vehicle system

Abstract

An alternative and complementary C-UAS (Counter-Unmanned Air Systems) solution to existing ones is proposed: the use of a swarm of defending drones. These drones adopt a hemispherical shield formation to deny hostile UAS access to the protected target. The key to this strategy lies in the design of a distributed control law that allows defending drones to track trajectories, maintain position, and orient themselves in space while maintaining the shape of the shield a based on the location and speed of the hostile swarm and the target to be defended. Furthermore, the proposed strategy is scalable and adaptable to different sizes of protected areas, from small installations to large geographic regions.

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Published

2025-09-01

Issue

Section

Ingeniería de Control