Research on Strategies of Herding a Flock of Birds by Multiple UAVs

The collision of migrating birds or other aerial wild animals with airplanes will cause considerable economic losses to the global aviation industry. Several herding methods have been proposed in recent years to establish external control over the behavior of the fauna. A new herding algorithm, called m-waypoint algorithm, enables a UAV to drive a flock of birds to a specific target point. The model of the flock can be obtained and used by optimizing the existing flock dynamics model and the predator model of birds. In this paper, the existing single-UAV algorithm is extended to multi-UAVs cooperative herding. Based on the knowledge of mechanics, the repulsive force of each single drone to the bird flock is summed, so as to increase the success rate of herding and the accuracy of original algorithm. Meanwhile, optimizing the late herding period. When UAVs drives a flock of birds to a safe position, the UAVs flock changes its formation. The UAV will fly at the same speed as the bird flock on the edge of the bird flock's perception of danger, until it stays away from the protected area. The simulation experiment verifies the effectiveness of the improved algorithm.