Regional localization framework using adaptive airships network

As an essential element of the global information infrastructure, the Global positioning system (GPS) is of great importance for positioning of an unmanned aerial vehicles. However, civilian GPS has no protection against malicious acts such as spoofing. The cyber security of civilian GPS faces serious challenges due to the vulnerability of GPS signal. To solve the problem, a framework including three layers of regional localization for multi-UAVs is presented by using an adaptive airship network where the least number of satellites needed is four. In this frame, the airship is considered as a signal source for a positioning service to provide the precise position efficiently and effectively for UAV. The certain scalability can be obtained when all the UAVs are under the airships' coverage. One airship is regarded as an agent in the multi-agent network, and the cooperative location problem is solved by the adaptive diffusion algorithm. The simulations show the effectiveness of the framework.