Decentralized Asset Control for Layered Sensing

ABSTRACT:Toyon Research Corporation proposes to develop a decentralized asset management framework which will provide near-optimal loose cooperative control of diverse assets within the Layered Sensing Architecture. We propose to develop an asset manager which will perform allocation, assignment, vehicle routing, target prediction, and sensor tasking for a heterogeneous collection of assets while taking into account other asset managers and assets.The proposed design creates a team of teams behavior, which can accommodate large numbers of diverse assets with tolerant synchronization.Interfaces will accept information needs from multiple sources and will be plug-n-play so that organic assets can come on-line at any time to help fulfill sensing objectives.We will build upon Toyons existing fingerprinting, fusion, prediction, tasking and routing algorithms and the Tracked Object Manager (TOM).In Phase I, we developed the prototype asset manager, built a realistic contemporary operational scenario, and demonstrated real-time closed-loop plug-and-play operation of multiple asset managers controlling assets simulated using SLAMEM. In Phase II we will advance the prototype asset manager incorporating decentralized fusion and tasking.We will perform live closed-loop testing of the new decentralized control framework using multiple asset managers and real unmanned aerial vehicles at Camp Roberts.BENEFIT:This project has three tremendous benefits.First, is the fundamental advancement of decentralized control and fusion algorithms which will enable multiple groups of assets to perform concurrent missions as an efficient autonomous agile team.Second is the development of the Decentralized Asset Manager application, a tool which greatly expands the usefulness of thousands of small UAVs from traditional look over the next hill to autonomous convoy over-watch and suspect tracking missions. Third is the creation of a simulation which can be used to test and evaluate this and other asset manger concepts.In addition to military systems, the technology developed during this project will serve as a foundation for planning tools for manned and unmanned systems, providing, for example, hazardous material transport over-watch or emergency response plans for natural disasters or biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks.