Integrated Mission Planning and Autonomous Control Technology for Heterogeneous Collaborating Platforms (IMPACT-HCP)

SSCI and Olin College of Engineering propose to develop, integrate and test an innovative IMPACT-HCP system (Integrated Mission Planning and Autonomous Control Technology for Heterogeneous Collaborating Platforms). The main features of the proposed system include several innovative behaviors for UAV/UGV collaboration for efficient mission execution. Proposed behaviors include: (i) Collaborative Landing Zone (LZ) Determination; (ii) Collaborative Team Navigation; (iii) Collaborative Mapping; (iv) Collaborative Landing; and (v) Coordinated Arrival. IMPACT-HCP learns about an uncertain environment in real time and performs decentralized task allocation using a Multi-step Allocation Algorithm (MA2). The integrated system will be implemented using a scalable software and communication architecture. IMPACT-HCP will be tested through hardware experiments at Olin College of Engineering at their 150-acre test range. The experiments will involve a USV/UAV/UGV team and collaborative behaviors developed under the IMPACT-HCP framework will be tested on a realistic mission scenario. The following capabilities will be demonstrated: image processing for search, detection and classification; dynamic path planning; sensor fusion for collaborative navigation and mapping; coordinated arrival; and coordinated landing of a UAV on a UGV and a USV. Phase II will focus on the full system prototype development and its testing under realistic operating conditions.