Auction Based Approaches to Distributed Sensor Management

"In the proposal, we will extend ALPHATECH's dynamic programming based approach to sensor resource management so that it can control a network of heterogeneous sensors. To reduce the complexity of the problem to a manageable level, the system will employ ahierarchical approach and will assume that processing occurs in a single centralized node. The algorithm proposed will decompose the problem into assigning tracking and discrimination responsibility for individual targets to particular sensors and, then,to subsequently solve the optimal sensor scheduling problem for the responsible sensors. For performing the sensor-target assignment, we will apply a variant of a constrained auction algorithm. The resultant mode scheduling problem will then be solvedindependently for each sensor using a dynamic programming based approach. A prototypical implementation of the resultant system will be constructed and evaluated and appropriate measures of performance will be generated. This research will provide a solidand necessary foundation for later work in which we will consider the implications of a distributed management architectures using a similar algorithmic approach. ALPHATECH envisions that the technology that will result from this SBIR program effort willhave the potential for significant interest from a large customer base, both within DoD and the commercial sector. Within the DoD community, the problem of performing distributed sensor ma