Cooperative communication based on swarm intelligence: vision, model, and key technology

Inspired by natural swarms, unmanned platform swarms have been applied in military reconnaissance, civil mapping, and so on. Compared with a single unmanned platform, unmanned platform swarms exhibit higher environmental suitability and robustness, as well as better capacities for executing missions. Intelligent and reliable swarm communication is particularly critical for the activities of swarms; nonetheless, the scarce communication resources and the complex environment make swarm communications quite challenging. The existing research on communication in unmanned clusters lacks effectiveness, reliability, safety, and systematic consideration of autonomy, cooperativity, and intelligence. Hence, this paper focuses on the communication networks of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms, such as ad hoc mesh networks, combines the swarm intelligence theory and the cognitive radio technology, and proposes a cooperative communication model and a cooperative sensing method based on swarm intelligence for UAV swarms. Finally, future developments are presented.