Simulation of convoy of unmanned vehicles using agent based modeling

There has been an increasing interest of unmanned vehicles keeping the importance of defense and security. A few models for a convoy of unmanned vehicle exist in literature. The objective of this paper is to exploit agent based modeling technique for a convoy of unmanned vehicles where each vehicle is an agent. Using this approach, the convoy of vehicles reaches a specified goal from a starting point. Each agent is associated with number of sensors. The agents make intelligent decisions based on sensor inputs and at the same time maintaining their group capability and behavior. The simulation is done for a battlefield environment from a single starting point to a single goal. This approach can be extended for multiple starting points to reach multiple goals. The simulation gives the time taken by the convoy to reach a goal from its initial position. In the battlefield environment, commanders make various tactical decisions depending upon the location of an enemy outpost, minefields, number of soldiers in platoons, and barriers. The simulation can help the commander to make effective decisions depending on battlefield, convoy and obstacles to reach a particular goal. The paper describes the proposed approach and gives the simulation results. The paper also gives problems for future research in this area.