Swarm intelligence algorithms for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles collaboration: a comprehensive review

Over the past decade, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have demonstrated increasing promise. In this context, we provide a review on swarm intelligence algorithms that play an extremely important role in multiple UAV collaborations. The study focuses on four aspects we consider relevant for the topic: collision avoidance, task assignment, path planning, and formation reconfiguration. A comprehensive investigation of selected typical algorithms that analyses their merits and demerits in the context of multi-UAV collaboration is presented. This research summarises the basic structure of swarm intelligence algorithms, which consists of several fundamental phases; and provides a comprehensive survey of swarm intelligence algorithms for the four aspects of multi-UAV collaboration. Besides, by analysing these key technologies and related applications, the research trends and challenges are highlighted. This broad review is an outline for scholars and professionals in the field of UAV swarms.