Increasing Autonomy of UAVs Decentralized CSAT Mission Management Algorithm

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are acquiring an increased level of autonomy as more complexmission scenarios are envisioned [1]. For example, UAVs are being used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions as well as to assist humans in the detection and localization of wildfires [2], tracking of moving vehicles along roads [3], [4], and performing border patrol missions [5]. A critical component for networks of autonomous vehicles is the ability to detect and localize targets of interest in a dynamic and unknown environment. The success of these missions hinges on the ability of the algorithms to appropriately handle the uncertainty in the information of the dynamic environment and the ability to cope with the potentially large amounts of communicated data that will need to be broadcast to synchronize information across networks of vehicles. Because of their relative simplicity, centralized mission management algorithms have previously been developed to create a conflict-free task assignment (TA) across all vehicles. However, these algorithms are often slow to react to changes in the fleet and environment and require high bandwidth communication to ensure a consistent situational awareness (SA) from distributed sensors and also to transmit detailed plans back to those sensors. © 2009 IEEE.