Multi-unmanned aerial vehicle multi acoustic source localization

This paper addresses a multisource localization problem with multiple unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with appropriate sensors coordinating with each other, wherein the sources are simultaneously emitting identical acoustic signals. Distributed coordinated localization algorithms based on multiple range and direction measurements are presented and performances are evaluated in different practically significant mission scenarios. Non-deterministic polynomial (NP) hardness to determine optimal number of unmanned aerial vehicles for a given mission scenario is discussed. Group coordination, tactical path, and goal replan strategies to enable efficient localization of single and multiple acoustic sources have been designed. The localization algorithm along with coordination strategy is verified in the presence of realistic error conditions through simulation.