Decision Theoretic Planning System for Air Operations - dPLAN

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are being transformed from stand-alone assets to nodes in a network of interconnected knowledgeable entities in the operating environment working to enhance decision-making and collaboration in intelligence collection and precision strike missions. There is a well-established need for dynamic re-planning during a plan execution in response to environmental changes, UAS status, and mission updates. In Phase I, we designed and demonstrated the feasibility of a Decision-Theoretic Planning System for Air Operations, with our architecture consisting of three main components: Asset and Payload Scheduling that schedules assets and payload by taking into account the missions at hand and the assessed situation and threat analysis obtained using Constraint Programming (CP) technology; Proactive Flight Planning that performs route planning for a mission based on multiple way points and the current situation and threat; and Dynamic Plan Adaptation that dynamically adjusts routes during a mission based on real-time situation and threat assessment, and implements a reward scheme where the most reward is obtained upon a successful mission completion. In Phase II, we propose to research and develop a full-scale prototype for decision-theoretic planning/replanning system (dPLAN) for ATOs, and evaluate the performance of the developed system for UAS intelligence gathering missions.