Dismounted Small Unmanned Air Vehicle (SUAV) Associate

ISX Corporation, in conjunction with the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratory, proposes the continued development of the Generalized UAV Associate (GUAVA). GUAVA will address the significant military problem of a dismounted soldier attempting to operate a small UAV in a busy tactical situation. GUAVA will be implemented as an associate system running on a personal digital assistant (PDA). Through hierarchical, composable behavior specification GUAVA will enable the soldier to effectively task the UAV at levels of abstraction ranging from the highest level (Mission) through the most detailed level (Execution) without needing to continually interact with the PDA. GUAVA will use innovative bandwidth-aware distributed software agent architecture based on the Distributed Agent-Based Information Dissemination System (DAIDS) and the Enhanced Mobile Agent Architecture (EMAA) to augment the capabilities of the small UAV so that the GUAVA-UAV combination has an apparent Autonomous Control Level of ACL-4. GUAVA will leverage the Mission Effectiveness and Safety Analysis (MENSA) system to monitor and evaluate the UAV's ability to fulfill its mission. GUAVA will include a detailed model of the soldier's operational context to be used in determining information needs and in anticipatory re-planning of missions in the event of an anomaly.