In context
By mid-2025, low-altitude economy applications were expanding rapidly, yet multi-UAV tracking of multiple non-cooperative targets in cluttered outdoor environments remained challenging due to random obstacles, scattered targets, and limited sensor ranges. Single-UAV systems often lost targets, and existing multi-UAV methods struggled with global observation and re-acquisition after occlusion or sudden target motion.
What was reported
Researchers from Dalian University of Technology and Dalian Maritime University proposed a mother-daughter multi-UAV architecture for joint coverage and tracking of multiple targets. The mother UAV, equipped with long-range lidar, scans the operation area from altitude to obtain global observations and predict target trajectories. Using Welzl's algorithm, it computes the minimum bounding circle of predicted target positions and plans a tracking trajectory toward its center to maximize coverage.
Daughter UAVs, each carrying short-range solid-state lidar, are then scheduled to approach and track individual targets one-on-one. The mother UAV provides global guidance to daughters when they lose targets due to occlusion or sudden motion, enabling re-acquisition without full re-search. The system also includes a mutual-observation method for coordinate frame unification among UAVs, using point-cloud clustering and laser odometry.
Simulation results indicated the method effectively enhanced multi-UAV observation capability for multiple targets. Outdoor experiments with a mother and three daughter UAVs validated the approach on real platforms, demonstrating sustained and stable tracking in a forest-like scene.
Why it mattered
This work addressed a practical gap in multi-UAV tracking: maintaining continuous observation when targets are dispersed and easily lost. By combining global coverage planning with local one-on-one tracking, the hierarchical approach reduced path redundancy and improved robustness, offering a scalable template for industrial applications such as perimeter surveillance, logistics monitoring, and search-and-rescue in unstructured environments.
"The mother UAV provides global observation information of most targets at high altitude, ensuring that when a daughter UAV loses its target due to obstacle occlusion or sudden target motion, it can still re-track the target based on the mother UAV's global guidance."
Source: 《机器人》期刊 (robot.sia.cn) · Published 2025-06-09 · “基于子母式多无人机协同的多目标追踪”