Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Educational drones have become increasingly important in education and research due to their affordability, user-friendly design and control, and potential use as tools in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning. For example, CoDrone EDUs are used to teach basic programming principles and drone control to high school or university students. As drones in real-world applications often collaborate to solve problems, controlling multiple educational drones in a team is crucial and beneficial for enhancing students' problem-solving and design skills. However, these educational drones primarily rely on one-to-one control via a radio-frequency remote controller, and programming libraries for coordinating multi-drone missions are limited, posing challenges for students or developers in controlling them effectively. To address the lack of control in missions with multiple educational drones, we present a drone control station (DCS), featuring a centralized architecture that connects and controls various drones. We first develop scenarios and use cases that utilize multiple drones, specifying the system requirements. We then design conceptual models and architectures for the DCS. Next, we implement the DCS and evaluate whether it achieves the team missions. Experimental results show that the DCS with the centralized architecture is suitable for team missions with multiple educational drones. We expect the approach in our work to serve as a method for controlling multi-drone missions in an educational environment.
Source: Sensors
DOI: 10.3390/s26041281
Institution: Gyeongsang National University
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7129098889