Canadian artic Sovereignty: Local intervention by flocking UAVs

Abstract

The importance of local intervention capability for the assertion of Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest Passage is recognized. However, Canada lacks the ability to deploy, on demand, assets to search a wide area for rescue or surveillance purposes in the North. This fact motivated our investigation of the feasibility of a rapid intervention system based on a carrier-scouts design in which a number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would be transported, air launched and recovered by a carrier aircraft. These UAVs would have the ability to self-organize in formations that correspond to the task at hand. When searching for a target, they would fly in a linear pattern so that the search area swept per hour and the probability of detecting the target would be considerably increased. A 1973 report by the Tactical Combat Aircraft Programs of the Boeing Aerospace Company for the US Air Force and a 2007 thesis by Chalamont indicate that airborne launch and recovery of many UAVs from a carrier aircraft is feasible and requires only already existing technology. We propose here a solution to the remaining problem of managing simultaneously the many UAVs that are required by the vastness of the areas to be surveyed, with a minimum number of human controllers and communications. Namely, we present algorithms for the self-organization of the UAVs in the required formations. These allow for surveillance operations during which close-up images would be acquired of activities in a region of interest, and searching an area for assets in distress and providing a visual presence for such. We reach the conclusion that our proposed local intervention system with flocking UAVs is feasible and would provide a valuable asset for asserting Canadian Sovereignty in the North.