Supporting Controlling Group Mission Among Educational Drones: An Object-Oriented Approach

Educational drones have become important in research due to their affordability, user-friendly design and control, and potential for beginner learning. However, most rely on one-to-one control through radio-frequency remote controller, which creates challenges in coordinating multiple units since inter-device communication is limited. To address this issue, this work uses two architectural approaches with object-oriented methods for CoDrone EDU models and explores a Drone Control Station system to achieve a mission using onboard capabilities such as the color sensor. The first approach is a centralized architecture, connecting multiple drones to a single station via a USB hub. The second approach is a client-server architecture, enabling coordination among many station instances over TCP/IP. Applying object-oriented principles allows the control of multi-drone missions to be organized into well-defined components. With these principles, it is possible to enhance scalability, enabling flexible integration of behaviors and mission requirements. Through flight tests based on the mission of yellow card detection, the control architectures are being tested and compared, focusing on mission time and inspection coverage. Results show that while centralized control is simple and suitable for basic applications, it lacks scalability. In contrast, client-server control improves scalability, though it requires higher implementation effort and a stable network. The flight tests demonstrated approximately 77% reduction in mission time when employing multiple drones compared to using a single drone. We expect our work to serve as one approach for controlling multiple drones with limited capabilities and encourage the use of educational drones in other domains.