Data Architecture Enabling Robust Cooperative Autonomy with Minimal Information Exchange

Orbit Logic and the University of Colorado propose to develop a hierarchical autonomous mission planning and execution capability for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) that will address many of the challenges associated with long duration operations. In particular, the research will innovate approaches to the exchange of information between collaborating vehicles that enables onboard decision-making to perform effectively despite the communication limitations imposed by the underwater maritime environment. This will be accomplished through the leveraging and integration of several key technologies. The first is the employment of a novel decentralized data fusion approach to maintain the collective state awareness of a group of federated collaborating assets. This capability intelligently exchanges data (or strategically withholds data exchange) to minimize communications while maximizing knowledge. Secondly, we will employ resource ferrying strategies to optimize collaborative operations for energy consumption. This technique, applicable to homogeneous or heterogeneous systems, has promise to significantly improve the overall effectiveness of long duration missions by intelligently distributing data and stored electrical energy. Finally, autonomous decision logic strategies leveraged from synergistic satellite autonomy research will overlay the data architecture. Research will be conducted to determine the most compact representation of asset information necessary to achieve robust, real-time adaptive mission performance.