Evolutionary coordination system for fixed-wing communications unmanned aerial vehicles

A system to coordinate the movement of a group of unmanned aerial vehicles that provide a network backbone over mobile ground-based vehicles with communication needs is presented. Using evolutionary algorithms, the system evolves flying manoeuvres that position the aerial vehicles by fulfilling two key requirements; i) they maximise net coverage and ii) they minimise the power consumption. Experimental results show that the proposed coordination system is able to offer a desirable level of adaptability with respect to the objectives set, providing useful feedback for future research directions.