Ground tactical mission support by multi-agent control of UAV operations

Abstract

Autonomous control of group of unmanned aerial vehicles based on task allocation mechanisms shows great potential for ground tactical mission support. We introduce experimental simulation system combining flexible mission control of ground assets in urban environment and autonomous aerial support utilizing multi-agent problem solving techniques. Two case-studies are presented for evaluation - cooperative area surveillance and dynamic target tracking with undervalued number of assets. We show the strength and benefits of multi-agent task allocation and delegation mechanisms in such dynamic scenarios mainly in case of limited number of assets. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.