Swarm/agent Technology For Small Unit Scalable Effects

Procerus Technologies, along with its partner Brigham Young University, propose to develop cooperative control technologies to enable multiple small, unmanned air vehicles (SUAVs) to carry out a mission involving search, tracking, imaging, and localization (STIL). The goal is to carry out these activities as a team of SUAVs, enhancing the performance and robustness of the mission execution. During this Phase I SBIR task, the Procerus/BYU team will carry out the following technical tasks: 1) Create a multiple SUAV simulation testbed for algorithm testing and development. 2) Develop probabilistic target motion models that capture target behavior based on situational awareness. 3) Formulate and test a multi-model tracker to estimate target vehicle location. 4) Design and implement a cooperative control architecture that enables multi-SUAV STIL. 5) Develop a search strategy that maximizes the probability of target detection based on a location probability prior. 6) Design and implement a cooperative tracking algorithm that maximizes tracking robustness. 7) Demonstrate the multi-SUAV STIL algorithms in a realistic mission simulation. The Procerus/BYU team will leverage their technical expertise in vision-based control of SUAVs and cooperative control of SUAVs to successfully complete the technical objectives of this proposal.