Multi-UAV Deployment in Obstacle-Cluttered Environments with LOS Connectivity

Yuda Chen; Shuaikang Wang; Jie Li; Meng Guo

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arXiv · 2507.21772

Multi-UAV Deployment in Obstacle-Cluttered Environments with LOS Connectivity

Yuda Chen·Shuaikang Wang·Jie Li·Meng Guo

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Abstract

A reliable communication network is essential for multiple UAVs operating within obstacle-cluttered environments, where limited communication due to obstructions often occurs. A common solution is to deploy intermediate UAVs to relay information via a multi-hop network, which introduces two challenges: (i) how to design the structure of multihop networks; and (ii) how to maintain connectivity during collaborative motion. To this end, this work first proposes an efficient constrained search method based on the minimumedge RRT? algorithm, to find a spanning-tree topology that requires a less number of UAVs for the deployment task. Then, to achieve this deployment, a distributed model predictive control strategy is proposed for the online motion coordination. It explicitly incorporates not only the inter-UAV and UAVobstacle distance constraints, but also the line-of-sight (LOS) connectivity constraint. These constraints are well-known to be nonlinear and often tackled by various approximations. In contrast, this work provides a theoretical guarantee that all agent trajectories are ensured to be collision-free with a teamwise LOS connectivity at all time. Numerous simulations are performed in 3D valley-like environments, while hardware experiments validate its dynamic adaptation when the deployment position changes online.

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BibTeX RIS

Yuda Chen, Shuaikang Wang, Jie Li, Meng Guo. 2025-07-29. Multi-UAV Deployment in Obstacle-Cluttered Environments with LOS Connectivity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21772

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