Team, Game, and Negotiation based Intelligent Autonomous UAV Task Allocation for Wide Area Applications

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have the potential to be used for search and surveillance missions, and as munitions in the battlefield. The UAVs are deployed in swarms as they may not have sufficient computational, sensor, and operational capability to complete the task single-handedly. A desirable feature for these UAV swarms is the capability of intelligent autonomous decision making and coordination, with minimal or no centralized control. In this chapter, we present decentralized and distributed task allocation schemes based on concepts from team theory, game theory, and from negotiation techniques used in decision-making problems arising in economics, and apply these to design intelligent decision-making strategies for multiple UAV systems performing a wide area search and surveillance mission. We also address the task of searching an unknown environment, which is a major component in such missions, separately using game theoretical concepts.

[1]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Multi-Robot Task Allocation in Uncertain Environments , 2003, Auton. Robots.

[2]  P. Gurfil,et al.  Evaluating UAV flock mission performance using Dudek's taxonomy , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005, American Control Conference, 2005..

[3]  T. Başar,et al.  Dynamic Noncooperative Game Theory , 1982 .

[4]  Debasish Ghose,et al.  Search by UAVs with Flight Time Constraints using Game Theoretical Models , 2005 .

[5]  J. Marschak,et al.  Elements for a Theory of Teams , 1955 .

[6]  Marios M. Polycarpou,et al.  Cooperative Control for Autonomous Air Vehicles , 2002 .

[7]  Marios M. Polycarpou,et al.  Cooperative real-time search and task allocation in UAV teams , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[8]  D. Ghose,et al.  Self assessment schemes for multi-agent cooperative search , 2006, 2006 American Control Conference.

[9]  Marjorie Darrah,et al.  UAV Cooperative Task Assignments for a SEAD Mission Using Genetic Algorithms , 2006 .

[10]  Lior Pachter,et al.  UAV Task Assignment with Timing Constraints via Mixed-Integer Linear Programming , 2004 .

[11]  Corey Schumacher,et al.  Task allocation for wide area search munitions with variable path length , 2003, Proceedings of the 2003 American Control Conference, 2003..

[12]  J. Willard,et al.  Simultaneous Area Search and Task Assignment for a Team of Cooperative Agents , 2003 .

[13]  D. Ghose,et al.  Multiple agent search of an unknown environment using game theoretical models , 2004, Proceedings of the 2004 American Control Conference.

[14]  Kevin M. Passino,et al.  Agreement strategies for cooperative control of uninhabited autonomous vehicles , 2003, Proceedings of the 2003 American Control Conference, 2003..

[15]  A. Rubinstein.  Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model , 1982 .

[16]  D. Ghose,et al.  Multiple UAV search using agent based negotiation scheme , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005, American Control Conference, 2005..

[17]  Phillip R. Chandler,et al.  Dynamic network flow optimization models for air vehicle resource allocation , 2001, Proceedings of the 2001 American Control Conference. (Cat. No.01CH37148).

[18]  Maja J. Matarić,et al.  A formal framework for the study of task allocation in multi-robot systems , 2003 .

[19]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Robust Decentralized Task Assignment for Cooperative UAVs , 2006 .

[20]  Phillip R. Chandler,et al.  UAV Task Assignment with Timing Constraints , 2003 .

[21]  Sarit Kraus,et al.  Automated Negotiation and Decision Making in Multiagent Environments , 2001, EASSS.

[22]  Steven R. Rasmussen,et al.  Task Allocation for Wide Area Search Munitions via Iterative Network Flow , 2002 .

[23]  James N. Eagle,et al.  Using multiple searchers in constrained‐path, moving‐target search problems , 1996 .

[24]  Nidhi Kalra,et al.  Market-Based Multirobot Coordination: A Survey and Analysis , 2006, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[25]  D. Ghose,et al.  Multi-UAV Task Allocation using Team Theory , 2005, Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[26]  Anthony Stentz,et al.  A Free Market Architecture for Distributed Control of a Multirobot System , 2000 .

[27]  Mario Innocenti,et al.  Real-Time Unmanned Vehicles Task Allocation with Moving Targets , 2004 .

[28]  Maja J. Mataric,et al.  Sold!: auction methods for multirobot coordination , 2002, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[29]  Debasish Ghose,et al.  Multiple UAV task allocation using negotiation , 2006, AAMAS '06.