Dynamic teams of networked vehicle systems

The design of a distributed control framework for dynamic teams of unmanned vehicles is discussed. The problem is formulated for a border patrol scenario. In this scenario there is a region under surveillance, a set of vehicles with different capabilities and the ability to provide elemental services which can be combined to provide composed services, and human operators. The problem consists of designing a distributed control structure which is able to match the capabilities of the system to the surveillance requirements with the help of mixed initiative interactions (human operators in the feedback loops). The distributed control framework consists of a hierarchy of team and sub-team controllers, vehicle supervisors, and elemental maneuver feedback controllers. The control framework is described as a dynamic network of hybrid automata. The problem of resource allocation is formulated as a problem of team formation.