Optimising pheromone communication in a UAV swarm

Abstract Background Excretory-secretory (ES) products are crucial in maintaining helminths in the host. Consequently, the proteins of ES are potential vaccine molecules and potential therapeutic agents for autoimmune diseases. Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri, a gastrointestinal parasite of mice, is a model of hookworm infection in humans. ES produced by both sexes of H. polygyrus bakeri L4 stage cultured separately shows different immunomodulatory properties than ES obtained when both sexes are cultured together. Accordingly, the objective of this study was to identify and compare the excretory-secretory molecules from single-sex and mixed cultures. Methods The composition of ES of male and female L4 stage nematodes in the presence (cultured together) or absence (cultured alone) of the opposite sex was examined. Proteins were identified using mass spectrometry. The functions of identified proteins were explored with Blast2GO. Results A total of 258 proteins derived from mixed larval culture in the presence of sex pheromones were identified, 160 proteins from pure female cultures and 172 from pure male cultures. Exposure of nematodes to the sex pheromones results in abundant production of proteins with immunomodulatory properties such as Val proteins, acetylcholinesterases, TGF-β mimic 9 and HpARI. Proteins found only in ES from mixed larval cultures were TGF-β mimics 6 and 7 as well as galectin. Conclusions The presence of the opposite sex strongly influences the composition of ES products, probably by chemical (pheromone) communication between individuals. However, examination of the composition of ES from various conditions gives an opportunity for searching for new potentially therapeutic compounds and anthelminthics as well as components of vaccines. Manipulation of the nematode environment might be important for the studies on the immunomodulatory potential of nematodes.

Download Full-text

Dynamic Polygon Generation for Flexible Pattern Formation in Large-Scale UAV Swarm Networks

2020 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps ◽

10.1109/gcwkshps50303.2020.9367501 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Gunasekaran Raja ◽

Kottilingam Kottursamy ◽

Ajay Theetharappan ◽

Korhan Cengiz ◽

Aishwarya Ganapathisubramaniyan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pattern Formation ◽

Large Scale ◽

Uav Swarm

Download Full-text

UAV Formation Shape Control via Decentralized Markov Decision Processes

Algorithms ◽

10.3390/a14030091 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 91

Author(s):

Md Ali Azam ◽

Hans D. Mittelmann ◽

Shankarachary Ragi

Keyword(s):

Control Problem ◽

Shape Control ◽

Formation Control ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Geographical Region ◽

Dynamic Programming Method ◽

Theoretic Approach ◽

Control Approach ◽

Uav Swarm ◽

Markov Decision

In this paper, we present a decentralized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm formation control approach based on a decision theoretic approach. Specifically, we pose the UAV swarm motion control problem as a decentralized Markov decision process (Dec-MDP). Here, the goal is to drive the UAV swarm from an initial geographical region to another geographical region where the swarm must form a three-dimensional shape (e.g., surface of a sphere). As most decision-theoretic formulations suffer from the curse of dimensionality, we adapt an existing fast approximate dynamic programming method called nominal belief-state optimization (NBO) to approximately solve the formation control problem. We perform numerical studies in MATLAB to validate the performance of the above control algorithms.

Download Full-text