Swarm simulation frameworks in Drone Programming - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

Output of a simple swarm position update

What is the output of this code that updates drone positions in a swarm simulation?

Drone Programming

positions = [(0,0), (1,1), (2,2)]
velocities = [(1,0), (0,1), (-1,-1)]
new_positions = [(x+vx, y+vy) for (x,y), (vx,vy) in zip(positions, velocities)]
print(new_positions)

A [(1, 0), (2, 2), (1, 1)]

B [(1, 0), (1, 2), (1, 1)]

C [(1, 0), (1, 2), (3, 3)]

D [(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 2)]

💡 Hint

Think about adding each velocity component to the corresponding position.

Each drone's new position is its old position plus its velocity vector. So (0+1,0+0) = (1,0), (1+0,1+1) = (1,2), (2-1,2-1) = (1,1).

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Key feature of swarm simulation frameworks

Which feature is essential for a swarm simulation framework to handle large numbers of drones efficiently?

A Distributed communication and local decision-making

B Centralized control of all drones from one point

C Manual control of each drone by a human operator

D Rendering 3D graphics for each drone individually

💡 Hint

Think about how real swarms work without a single leader.

Swarm frameworks rely on distributed communication and local decisions to scale well and mimic natural swarm behavior.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Identify the error in this drone collision avoidance code

What error does this code produce when running a drone collision avoidance step? positions = [(0,0), (1,1), (2,2)] for i, pos in enumerate(positions): for j, other_pos in enumerate(positions): if i != j and abs(pos[0] - other_pos[0]) < 1 and abs(pos[1] - other_pos[1]) < 1: positions[i] = (pos[0]+1, pos[1]+1) print(positions)

A RuntimeError due to modifying list during iteration

B IndexError because of invalid index access

C TypeError due to wrong data type in positions

D Positions updated correctly without error

💡 Hint

Check if modifying list elements during iteration is allowed in Python.

Modifying elements of a list during iteration is allowed in Python as long as the list size doesn't change. Here, positions are updated safely.

📝 Syntax

advanced

Syntax error in drone command sequence

Which option contains a syntax error in this drone command sequence code?

Drone Programming

commands = ['takeoff', 'move_forward', 'land']
for cmd in commands
    print(f"Executing {cmd}")

A

for cmd in commands:
    print(f"Executing {cmd}")

B

for cmd in commands:
    print("Executing " + cmd)

C

for cmd in commands
    print(f"Executing {cmd}")

D

)"}dmc{ gnitucexE"f(tnirp    
:sdnammoc ni dmc rof

💡 Hint

Look for missing punctuation in the for loop.

Python requires a colon ':' at the end of the for loop declaration line. Option C misses the colon causing a SyntaxError.

🚀 Application

expert

Number of drones after filtering by battery level

Given this code filtering drones with battery above 50%, how many drones remain?

Drone Programming

drones = [{'id':1, 'battery': 45}, {'id':2, 'battery': 75}, {'id':3, 'battery': 55}, {'id':4, 'battery': 30}]
active = [d for d in drones if d['battery'] > 50]
print(len(active))

A 2

B 3

C 1

D 4

💡 Hint

Count drones with battery strictly greater than 50.

Only drones with battery 75 and 55 are above 50, so 2 drones remain after filtering.