Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are frequently used for the exploration of a hostile environment. UAVs can be lost or significantly damaged during the exploration process. Although employing multiple UAVs can increase the chance of success, their efficiency depends on the collaboration strategies used. We present a cooperative exploration strategy for UAVs controlled by autonomous agents. The agents are sharing information, coordinate their short-term goals and path choices, while each agent uses state of the art algorithms for its individual path planning and obstacle avoidance. The overall goals are to minimize the exploration time, avoid damage by sharing information about threats, and be robust to the failures of individual UAVs. Extensive simulation results prove the validity of the approach and provide ways to determine the optimal number of UAVs for different exploration tasks.


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