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Drones can be connected as a swarm to precisely monitor large agricultural areas and manage them more sustainable. They test sensor technology in real environments and solve complex tasks faster. Key aspects include accurate localization, reliable communication, and dynamic flight control. The localization accuracy of RTK-GNSS-enabled system, which includes GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO positioning systems is compared with Ultra-Wideband (UWB) one. The UPWARDS communication hub is presented as a processing and connection point across swarm agents. This controller also incorporates collision avoidance features and testing of evasion strategies.
Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have vast application potential from industrial logistics and disaster monitoring to smart farming, for example, to create maps with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) cameras and AI-based image classification or the precision spot application of fertilizers. Operating multiple UAVs in parallel, including those with different specializations, enables efficient coverage of large areas. While existing research focused mainly on predefined flight formations for swarms or autonomous missions for single UAVs, the focus of this work is on multiple UAVs with individually adaptable missions. We derive communication system requirements from swarm coordination algorithms and present a respective design. The resulting modular architecture enables future research on autonomous adaptive UAV swarms and their use as flying sensor platforms.