Cooperative Decision and Control with Intermittent Asynchronous Communication

The goal of the proposed work is to construct a mathematically rigorous framework for evaluation and refinement of feedback control of UAVs in the presence of intermittent, dynamic, asynchronous communication. The feedback control includes a)application-layer cooperative processes (i.e., exercising team autonomy to accomplish a mission); and b) network-layer cooperative processes (i.e., to maximize the performance of the networking resource). Phase I will involve the design of a framework inside which mappings between dynamic communication algorithms, system tasks, and feedback control can be analyzed and synthesized to achieve desired performance. The feasibility of this approach will be demonstrated with a simple cooperative estimation task implemented in a multi-vehicle simulation that includes a high-fidelity model of the communications network and associated resource allocation protocols, allowing the simulated cooperative behavior to evolve over time given a realistic model of data dissemination between the nodes.