SensorFlock: an airborne wireless sensor network of micro-air vehicles

  • Authors:

  • Jude Allred;Ahmad Bilal Hasan;Saroch Panichsakul;William Pisano;Peter Gray;Jyh Huang;Richard Han;Dale Lawrence;Kamran Mohseni

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder;University of Colorado, Boulder

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Embedded networked sensor systems
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

An airborne wireless sensor network (WSN) composed of bird-sized micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) enables low cost high granularity atmospheric sensing of toxic plume behavior and storm dynamics, and provides a unique three-dimensional vantage for monitoring wildlife and ecological systems. This paper describes a complete implementation of our SensorFlock airborne WSN, spanning the development of our MAV airplane, its avionics, semi-autonomous flight control software, launch system, flock control algorithm, and wireless communication networking between MAVs. We present experimental results from flight tests of flocks of MAVs, and a characterization of wireless RF behavior in air-to-air communication as well as air-to-ground communication.