Colloquia

Samenvatting

Drones are useful for various applications: in filmmaking, inspection, cargo transport, surveillance, agriculture, environmental monitoring and many more situations. But in occasions where one drone falls short, multiple drones working together achieve more. A number of drones that share a common goal is referred to as a drone swarm. Where one drone is often piloted by a human, drones in a drone swarm have to fly autonomously in order to be useful. There are still many challenges that hinder a good implementation of a drone swarm. The very limited battery life of a drone being one them.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the feasibility of civil applications for drone swarms. The many technological challenges of designing a drone swarm were investigated through desk research.

As a use case, the application of a drone swarm for surveillance in the port of Rotterdam was chosen. As an entry point for cross-continental shipping to the Netherlands and Europe, the port of Rotterdam has also attracted traffickers of various illegal goods. Especially container terminals are a popular target. The contraband is hidden inside incoming containers and retrieved anywhere in the logistical process, often while the containers are momentarily stored on a terminal.

A swarm of autonomous drones could surveil the terminals in a port, alerting security teams when a suspicious person is spotted near the containers. Interviews and a co-design session with stakeholders in the port concluded that there is a need to investigate the added benefit of having more drones. To measure the performance of a drone swarm for surveillance, a virtual simulation was conducted. Paired with a battery swapping method that ensures there is always a consistent swarm flying, the results of the simulation gave insight in the added value of a drone swarm versus conventional methods of surveillance.