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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Initial Experiments In The Cooperative Control Of Unmanned Air Vehicles, Derek R. Nelson, Timothy W. Mclain, Reed S. Christiansen, Randal W. Beard, David Johansen
Initial Experiments In The Cooperative Control Of Unmanned Air Vehicles, Derek R. Nelson, Timothy W. Mclain, Reed S. Christiansen, Randal W. Beard, David Johansen
Faculty Publications
This paper addresses cooperative control for a team of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). Specifically, a team of three small UAVs is controlled to perform a cooperative timing mission. Starting at loiter locations distributed around the periphery of a 2 km square battle area, the UAVs cooperatively plan paths to arrive at a target at the center of the battle area in sequence at 10 sec intervals. Cooperative path planning is performed using the methodology of coordination variables and coordination functions. Coordination and waypoint path planning are centralized on a ground station computer. Experiments have been performed using BYU’s fleet of …
Coordinated Uav Target Assignment Using Distributed Tour Calculation, David H. Walker, Timothy W. Mclain, Jason K. Kowlett
Coordinated Uav Target Assignment Using Distributed Tour Calculation, David H. Walker, Timothy W. Mclain, Jason K. Kowlett
Faculty Publications
In this chapter a method for assigning unmanned aerial vehicle agents to targets through the use of preplanned vehicle tours is presented. Assignments are based on multi-target tours that consider the spread of the targets and the sensor capabilities of the vehicles. In this way, the individual agents and the team as a whole make better use of team resources and improve team cooperation. Planning and assignments are accomplished in reasonable computational time through the use of heuristics to reduce the problem size.