THexCAD: Uma Plataforma de Prototipagem e Simulação de Cobertura para Área com Múltiplos Drones
Resumo
Este artigo apresenta o THexCAD, uma plataforma distribuída para a realização de missões de cobertura de área com múltiplos drones. O objetivo da plataforma é facilitar o teste, análise e validação de estratégias de cobertura de área em ambientes simulados e reais. O principal desafio no desenvolvimento deste tipo de aplicação com múltiplos drones é a coordenação do enxame de drones de modo a cobrir uma área de forma eficiente, considerando a movimentação, coordenação, geração e alocação de subáreas e planejamento de caminhos para a cobertura. Neste sentido, o THexCAD fornece um framework que abstrai processos complexos, permitindo que desenvolvedores ou usuários se concentrem nas ações específicas relacionadas à missão com múltiplos drones. Os resultados experimentais iniciais mostram que o THexCAD escala bem quando o número de drones envolvidos na missão varia.
Palavras-chave:
THexCAD, Drones, Múltiplos Drones, Enxame de Drones, Cobertura de Área, Simulação, Prototipagem, Planejamento de Caminho, Divisão de Área, Tesselação Hexagonal, ROS (Robot Operating System), Gazebo, Sistemas Distribuídos, Estratégias de Cobertura, TSP (Travelling Salesman Problem), Boustrophedon, K-means
Referências
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Perez-imaz, H. I. A., Rezeck, P. A. F., Macharet, D. G., and Campos, M. F. M. (2016). Multi-robot 3d coverage path planning for First Responders teams. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pages 1374–1379.
Shah, S., Dey, D., Lovett, C., and Kapoor, A. (2017). Airsim: High-fidelity visual and physical simulation for autonomous vehicles. In Field and Service Robotics.
Simões, G. M. and de Sá, A. S. (2020). Um Framework para Simulação de Sistemas Robóticos baseados em Múltiplos Veículos Aéreos Não Tripulados. In Workshop de Trabalhos de Iniciação Científica e de Graduação do Simpósio Brasileiro de Redes de Computadores e Sistemas Distribuídos (WTG/SBRC 2020), pages 217–224, Brasil. Sociedade Brasileira de Computação.
SPH Engineering (2025). UgCS: Drone flight planning software. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Steen, M. V. and Tanenbaum, A. S. (2023). Distributed Systems. Martten Van Steen, Birmingham Mumbai, 4th edition.
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Terzi, M., Anastasiou, A., Kolios, P., Panayiotou, C., and Theocharides, T. (2019). SWIF-TERS: A Multi-UAV Platform for Disaster Management. In 2019 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (ICT-DM), pages 1–7.
Almadhoun, R., Taha, T., Seneviratne, L., Dias, J., and Cai, G. (2016). A survey on inspecting structures using robotic systems. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 13(6):18.
Almadhoun, R., Taha, T., Seneviratne, L., and Zweiri, Y. (2019). A survey on multi-robot coverage path planning for model reconstruction and mapping. SN Applied Sciences, 1(8):847.
Anastasiou, A., Zacharia, A., Papaioannou, S., Kolios, P., Panayiotou, C. G., and Polycarpou, M. M. (2024). Automated real-time inspection in indoor and outdoor 3d environments with cooperative aerial robots. In 2024 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pages 496–504.
ArduPilot Community (2025). ArduPilot Website. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Azpúrua, H., Freitas, G. M., Macharet, D. G., and Campos, M. F. M. (2018). Multi-robot coverage path planning using hexagonal segmentation for geophysical surveys. Robotica, 36(8):1144–1166.
Batalin, M. A. and Sukhatme, G. S. (2004). Coverage, Exploration and Deployment by a Mobile Robot and Communication Network. Telecommunication Systems, 26(2):181–196.
Bernardeschi, C., Fagiolini, A., Palmieri, M., Scrima, G., and Sofia, F. (2019). ROS/gazebo based simulation of co-operative UAVs. In Mazal, J., editor, Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, pages 321–334. Springer.
Cabreira, T. M., Brisolara, L. B., and Ferreira Jr., P. R. (2019). Survey on Coverage Path Planning with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Drones, 3(1):4.
Choset, H. and Pignon, P. (1998). Coverage path planning: The boustrophedon cellular decomposition. In Zelinsky, A., editor, Field and Service Robotics, pages 203–209, London. Springer London.
Christofides, N. (2022). Worst-Case Analysis of a New Heuristic for the Travelling Salesman Problem. Operations Research Forum, 3(1):20.
da Silva, B. S., Cabreira, T. M., de Souza, B. J. O., Matias, N. R., Machado, R. A. O., Jorge, L. A. C., and Ferreira, P. R. (2022). Framework for biological control with unmanned aerial vehicles. In 2022 Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS), 2022 Brazilian Symposium on Robotics (SBR), and 2022 Workshop on Robotics in Education (WRE), pages 25–30, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.
Dronecode (2025a). MAVLink: Micro air vehicle communication protocol. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Dronecode (2025b). PX4: Open source autopilot for drone developers. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Dronecode (2025c). QGroundControl: Intuitive and powerful ground control station for the mavlink protocol. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Gautam, A., Murthy, J. K., Kumar, G., Arjun Ram, S. P., Jha, B., and Mohan, S. (2015). Cluster, Allocate, Cover: An Efficient Approach for Multi-robot Coverage. In 2015 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pages 197–203.
Hossein Motlagh, N., Kortoçi, P., Su, X., Lovén, L., Hoel, H. K., Bjerkestrand Haugsvær, S., Srivastava, V., Gulbrandsen, C. F., Nurmi, P., and Tarkoma, S. (2023). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Air Pollution Monitoring: A Survey. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 10(24):21687–21704.
Koenig, N. and Howard, A. (2004). Design and use paradigms for gazebo, an open-source multi-robot simulator. In 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), volume 3, pages 2149–2154 vol.3.
Macenski, S., Foote, T., Gerkey, B., Lalancette, C., and Woodall, W. (2022). Robot operating system 2: Design, architecture, and uses in the wild. Science Robotics, 7(66).
Mishra, S. and Palanisamy, P. (2023). Autonomous Advanced Aerial Mobility – An End-to-End Autonomy Framework for UAVs and Beyond. IEEE Access, 11:136318–136349.
OpenCV Project (2025). OpenCV: Open source computer vision library. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Pellegrino, G., Simões, G. M., Assis, F., Gorender, S., and de Sá, A. S. (2020). Simple Area Coverage by a Dynamic Set of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In 2020 X Brazilian Symposium on Computing Systems Engineering (SBESC), pages 1–8.
Perez-imaz, H. I. A., Rezeck, P. A. F., Macharet, D. G., and Campos, M. F. M. (2016). Multi-robot 3d coverage path planning for First Responders teams. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pages 1374–1379.
Shah, S., Dey, D., Lovett, C., and Kapoor, A. (2017). Airsim: High-fidelity visual and physical simulation for autonomous vehicles. In Field and Service Robotics.
Simões, G. M. and de Sá, A. S. (2020). Um Framework para Simulação de Sistemas Robóticos baseados em Múltiplos Veículos Aéreos Não Tripulados. In Workshop de Trabalhos de Iniciação Científica e de Graduação do Simpósio Brasileiro de Redes de Computadores e Sistemas Distribuídos (WTG/SBRC 2020), pages 217–224, Brasil. Sociedade Brasileira de Computação.
SPH Engineering (2025). UgCS: Drone flight planning software. [link]. [Online; accessed 2025-02-25].
Steen, M. V. and Tanenbaum, A. S. (2023). Distributed Systems. Martten Van Steen, Birmingham Mumbai, 4th edition.
Telli, K., Kraa, O., Himeur, Y., Ouamane, A., Boumehraz, M., Atalla, S., and Mansoor, W. (2023). A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research Trends on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Systems, 11(8):400.
Terzi, M., Anastasiou, A., Kolios, P., Panayiotou, C., and Theocharides, T. (2019). SWIF-TERS: A Multi-UAV Platform for Disaster Management. In 2019 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (ICT-DM), pages 1–7.
Publicado
19/05/2025
Como Citar
SILVA, Maxwell F. da; SÁ, Alirio Santos de.
THexCAD: Uma Plataforma de Prototipagem e Simulação de Cobertura para Área com Múltiplos Drones. In: SALÃO DE FERRAMENTAS - SIMPÓSIO BRASILEIRO DE REDES DE COMPUTADORES E SISTEMAS DISTRIBUÍDOS (SBRC), 43. , 2025, Natal/RN.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 53-63.
ISSN 2177-9384.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbrc_estendido.2025.7062.
