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Phadke et al. Intell Robot 2023;3:453-78 Intelligence & Robotics
DOI: 10.20517/ir.2023.27

Review Open Access

Examining application-specific resiliency

implementations in UAV swarm scenarios

Abhishek Phadke 1,2 , F. Antonio Medrano 1,2
1
Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science, Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX 78412, USA.
2
Department of Computer Science, Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX 78412, USA.
Correspondence to: Abhishek Phadke, Department of Computer Science, Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, 6300
Ocean Drive Unit 5799, Corpus Christi, TX 78412, USA. E-mail: aphadke@islander.tamucc.edu

How to cite this article: Phadke A, Medrano FA. Examining application-specific resiliency implementations in UAV swarm
scenarios. Intell Robot 2023;3:453-78. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ir.2023.27

Received: 19 Jul 2023 First Decision: 15 Aug 2023 Revised: 29 Aug 2023 Accepted: 19 Sep 2023 Published: 25 Sep 2023

Academic Editors: Haibin Duan, Simon X. Yang Copy Editor: Dan Zhang Production Editor: Dan Zhang

Abstract
The number of real-world scenarios where the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm is beneficial has
greatly increased in recent years. From precision agriculture to forest fire monitoring, post-disaster search and
rescue applications, to military use, the applications are widespread. While it is a perceived requirement that all
UAV swarms be inherently resilient, in reality, it is often not so. The incorporation of resilient mechanisms depends
on an application usage scenario. This study examines a comprehensive range of application scenarios for UAV
swarms to bring forward the multitude of components that work together to provide a measure of resilience to the
overall swarm. A three-category scheme is used to classify swarm applications. While systemic resilience is an
interconnected concept, most real-world applications of UAV swarm research focus on making certain
components resilient to disturbances. A broad categorization of UAV swarm applications, categorized by
recognized components and modules, is presented, and prevalent approaches for novel resilience mechanisms in
each category are discussed.

Keywords: UAV, UAS, drone, resilience, disruptions

1. INTRODUCTION
UAV swarms, representing coordinated groups of drones operating through decentralized control
algorithms, have recently emerged at the forefront of aerial robotics research. These swarms leverage

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.

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