Simulation of unmanned air vehicle flocking

Flocking style behavior is commonplace in nature. It provides a number of benefits for groups of creatures on the move at little cost. Unmanned air vehicles are becoming increasingly popular for a variety of applications and are often used in groups. Manually controlling many UAVs at high densities can be difficult. The simple, efficient and safe nature of flocking as an automated flight control method, potentially make it an ideal solution for maneuvering groups of UAVs. The paper investigates the implementation of a real-time graphical simulation of flocking UAVs. Of particular interest is simulating simplified realistic aircraft dynamics in real-time and allowing flocking rule parameters and weightings to be interactively adjusted in order to investigate the effects they have on flocking behavior. The paper describes work carried out for an MSc. research project, which is now being utilized for the authors Ph.D research.