Design and Development of a Low-Cost Swarm UAV Platform for Intelligent Data-Driven Security Applications

Abstract

Intelligent data-driven security systems increasingly rely on distributed sensing, real-time communication, and autonomous decision-making to provide effective surveillance and situational awareness. Swarm robotics has emerged as a promising paradigm for such applications by enabling multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to collaboratively monitor dynamic environments and acquire security-relevant information. However, the widespread adoption of existing swarm UAV platforms is constrained by their high cost, complex system architectures, and dependence on specialized communication hardware. This paper presents the design and implementation of a low-cost swarm UAV platform for intelligent data-driven security applications. The proposed platform employs custom-built UAVs equipped with ESP32-S3 microcontrollers that utilize the ESP-NOW protocol to achieve reliable peer-to-peer communication without additional wireless communication modules. The system integrates custom-designed UAV frames, self-developed printed circuit boards (PCBs), and an independently developed flight control system, resulting in a modular, scalable, and cost-effective research platform. A Python-based monitoring dashboard developed using Streamlit provides real-time visualization, command transmission, and distributed data acquisition from multiple UAVs. Experimental validation demonstrates reliable multi-UAV communication and efficient real-time data exchange, enabling coordinated operation and continuous situational monitoring. The proposed platform offers a flexible and economical testbed for developing and evaluating swarm intelligence algorithms while supporting future research in distributed data fusion, autonomous swarm coordination, AI-driven threat detection, and next-generation aerial security systems.