Assignment of Heterogeneous Tasks to a Set of Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Steven A. Rasmussen, Derek B. Kingston · AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit · 2008
Over the past decade there has been a significant increase in the types and capabilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). With wingspans from less than a foot to well over 110 feet, there are UAVs capable of performing military missions at most levels of modern combat. While many of these UAVs were designed to perform their missions acting alone, there are many future missions that will either benefit from, or require, the employment of heterogeneous UAVs, with distinct capabilities, in cooperative teams. This paper presents an algorithmic framework to solve cooperative assignment problems used to manage a team of heterogeneous UAVs in the prosecution of a mission. By abstracting specific tasks to entrance/exit points and time-on-station, an efficient search can be realized that finds a near-optimal assignment of UAVs to generic tasks in a diverse environment that includes no-fly areas and static obstacles. Example tasks that fit into this framework include reconnaissance, search, tracking, and communication relay. The framework is not specific to a particular scenario, but rather is flexible enough to incorporate new UAVs and missions. Provision is made, in the algorithm, for heterogeneous UAVs and mission tasks.