The drones are here! All six of them are in the storage room and they've been entered into the equipment booking system, however: make sure you complete the mandatory training before attempting to fly one.

You placed a request for some drones over a year ago, and they have finally arrived. You and Robin from IT took the training for drone operation as soon as it became available, but nobody else is yet authorized to operate the drones. In addition, you are worried about mid-air collisions due to human error as well as the whole road monitoring project being jeopardized before it even gets started.

Therefore, you are both now planning on creating a piece of software that can operate the drones as a fleet. You want to use this software to fly all the drones simultaneously over the downtown area on Sunday morning, while there isn’t much traffic circulation, to record videos of the road (pavement) conditions. The idea is that you would operate one of the six, and the other five would maintain formation around the one you are controlling.

Hands-on option

Basic stage for the hands-on option

Draft a general set of rules stating how the other five drones should be positioned relative to the lead drone under your control. You want to ensure that there are no gaps in the imagery, that there is little overlap, and that the risk of collision is zero. You can combine writing and diagrams in your response.

In-depth stage for the hands-on option

Express at least some part of the above rule set in pseudocode and/or program code.

Conceptual option

Basic stage for the conceptual option

Watch this group of drones playing the James Bond theme music. Discuss in writing how complex you expect the coordination of the software would have to be to avoid the drones crashing and to ensure the music produced was reasonably accurate.

In-depth stage for the conceptual option

Read news articles and watch videos, such as this one, about drones being used as replacements for fireworks. Think about the differences between “flying in formation” and collaborative tasks like ants working together to cross a gap. An example is this viral news story of an attack on a wasp’s nest. Clearly citing your sources, discuss in writing what kinds of utility tasks, beyond entertainment, could be envisioned for swarms of drones.