About SWARM

The Characterisation, Diagnosis and Assurance of Health and Quality of Sensor Formations project, known by its nickname SWARM, which was started in November 2005  and completed in October 2008, used a set of scientific tools to develop more reliable formations and sensor networks for applications such as defence, fighting bushfires and surveillance.

The SWARM project consisted of three sub-projects:

1. Autonomous Formation Architecture & Control
2. Cooperative Target localisation
3. Sensor Network Localization

How will the results of SWARM be used?

Unmanned vehicles are independently controlled and often need to stay in a particular formation with other such vehicles. These moving vehicles need to interact with one another to maintain their formation. In order to do this reliably, the operating system controlling them must be dependable, even in the case of a failed communication link or the destruction or loss of one of the vehicles.

The same requirements are needed in sensor networks which need to detect the position of moving vehicles or other stationary sensors such as radars. Its own sensors also need to be located instantly in addition to the specific data it is collecting from elsewhere.

Who will benefit?

This work can be applied to wireless communications, defence missions, sensors for bushfires and surveillance.

What are the key features?

1.Autonomous formation. In areas of defence it is often important for planes and vehicles to maintain a rigid formation when executing a mission. Several scenarios need to be considered in maintaining this shape.

2. Radar emitter localisation. In some circumstances it may be necessary to localise and identify a set of emitters scattered over an area. Each vehicle using direction-finding sensors can collect data on the possible location of an emitter in relation to itself. Using a team of vehicles to survey the area from different angles, the data is collated and processed to produce an accurate location for the emitter.

3. Sensor networks. There are times when the location of sensors in a network is required. For example, bushfire sensors can be used to pinpoint the exact location of a fire. The results of SWARM can also be applied to telecommunications networks and to improve the sensor capabilities of submarines.