Abstract
Drone light shows (DLShows) represent a rapidly growing application of swarm robotics, creating captivating aerial displays through the synchronized flight of hundreds or thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as environmentally friendly and reusable alternatives to traditional pyrotechnics. This domain presents unique challenges in optimally assigning drones to visual waypoints and generating smooth, collision-free trajectories at a very large scale. This article introduces the Unified Assignment and Trajectory Generation (UATG) framework. The proposed approach concurrently solves two core problems: the optimal assignment of drones to designated goal locations and the generation of dynamically feasible, collision-free, time-parameterized trajectories. The UATG framework is specifically designed for DLShows, ensuring minimal transition times between formations and guaranteeing inter-drone collision avoidance. A key innovation is its exceptional computational efficiency, enabling the coordination of large-scale in real-time; for instance, it computes the optimal assignment and trajectories for 1008 drones in approximately one second on a standard laptop. Extensive simulations in realistic environments validate the framework's performance, demonstrating its capability to orchestrate complex formations, from alphanumeric characters to intricate 3D shapes, with precision and visual smoothness. This work provides a critical advancement for the DLShow industry, offering a practical and scalable solution for generating complex aerial choreography and establishing a valuable benchmark for ground control station software designed for the efficient coordination of multiple UAVs. A supplemental animated simulation of this work is available at this https URL.
Abstract (translated)
无人机灯光表演（DLShows）作为集群机器人技术快速发展的应用领域，通过数百乃至数千架无人机的协同飞行，打造出令人惊叹的空中视觉盛宴，并成为传统烟花表演的环保可重复替代方案。该领域面临的核心挑战在于：如何在大规模集群中为无人机最优分配视觉航点，并生成平滑无碰撞的飞行轨迹。本文提出的统一分配与轨迹生成（UATG）框架，创新性地同时解决了两个关键问题：无人机到目标位置的最优分配，以及生成动态可行、无碰撞且时间参数化的轨迹。该框架专为DLShows设计，确保编队间转换时间最短，并严格保证无人机间防碰撞。其核心突破在于卓越的计算效率，可实现大规模集群的实时协调——例如，在普通笔记本电脑上约一秒内即可完成1008架无人机的分配与轨迹规划。通过真实环境下的海量仿真验证，该框架展现出编排复杂编队（从字母数字到立体三维造型）的精准性与视觉流畅性。本研究为DLShow产业提供了关键性突破，既给出了生成复杂空中编舞的实用可扩展方案，也为多无人机高效协同的地面控制站软件建立了重要基准。本文配套的动画仿真视频可通过此链接查看。
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24401
