A Proposal of Multi-UAV Mission Coordination and Control Architecture

Abstract

Multi-UAV missions are complex systems that may include a fleet of UAVs, a crew of operators and different computers and interfaces. Currently, an important challenge is the reduction of the number of operators that is required for performing a multi-UAV mission. This challenge can be addressed by increasing the autonomy of fleets and providing capabilities of operators to the interfaces. This paper presents a proposal of control architecture for multi-UAV missions. This architecture shares some elements with centralized and distributed approaches and it has three layers: mission, task and action. The mission layer is implemented in the GCS and performs the mission planning and operator interfacing. Meanwhile, the task and action layers are located in the UAVs and perform respectively the task planning and executing. This architecture is applied to a simulation environment that reproduce a competitive scenario with two fleets of UAVs.