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Abstract
The goal of this paper is to study the characteristics of various control architectures (e.g. centralized, hierarchical, distributed, and hybrid) for a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in performing collaborative surveillance and crowd control. To this end, an overview of different control architectures is first provided covering their functionalities and interactions. Then, three major functional modules needed for crowd control are discussed under those architectures, including 1) crowd detection using computer vision algorithms, 2) crowd tracking using an enhanced information aggregation strategy, and 3) vehicles motion planning using a graph search algorithm. Depending on the architectures, these modules can be placed in the ground control center or embedded in each vehicle. To test and demonstrate characteristics of various control architectures, a test-bed has been developed involving these modules and various hardware and software components, such as 1) assembled UAVs and UGV, 2) a real-time simulator (in Repast Simphony), 3) off-the-shelf ARM architecture computers (ODROID-U2/3), 4) autopilot units with GPS sensors, and 5) multipoint wireless networks using XBee. Experiments successfully demonstrate the pros and cons of the considered control architectures in terms of computational performance in responding to different system conditions (e.g. information sharing).
Keywords
Control architecture, UAV, UGV, crowd control, information aggregation
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1. Introduction and Background
Surveillance plays a vital role in detecting intrusions in border patrol. In recent years, the roles of stationary surveillance equipment (e.g. ground sensor, light tower, and remote video surveillance systems) have been complimented by mobile surveillance equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). It was pointed out in [1] that the supplemental appropriations Bill of FY2010 have included $32 million for the new UAVs' acquisition by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Furthermore, by 2010, the usage of unmanned vehicles has helped to seize more than 22,000 pounds of marijuana and 5,000 illegal immigrants. Its importance grows tremendously as Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted a certificate of authorization to CBP for UAV flight along the Texas border and Gulf region [1].
Surveillance and crowd control using a team of UAVs and UGVs (the theme of this paper), however, is not a trivial task....