Onboard Planning System for UAVs in Support of Expeditionary Reconnaissance and Surveillance (OPS-USERS)

Aurora Flight Sciences and the MIT Aero-Astro Department have been jointly developing the human interfaces and underlying automation for a planning system that enables a field operator to command a team of UAVs to perform operations consistent with expeditionary missions. During Phase II, these tools will be further developed and demonstrated as a comprehensive system including high-level collaboration with other expeditionary teams and high-level C2, mid-level highly automated team management, and low-level UAV tasking for ‘drill-down’ operations. The algorithms and software are embodied in a human interface and an ‘on board planning module’, which resides on each UAV in the team, enabling the team to perform coordinated multi-vehicle tasks. Phase II will culminate in a demonstration which utilizes MIT’s mobile command and control experimental testbed for performing human testing, as well as the RAVEN (Real-time indoor Autonomous Vehicle test Environment) facility.