A Playbook Approach to Variable Autonomy Control of OAV Groups in Urban Terrain

Our first product from this effort will be P-VACS, the Playbook enhanced Variable Autonomy Con-trol System, a control architecture which allows a single human with minimal training to control multiple unmanned vehicles even under conditions of limited andinterrupted attentional capacity in urban opera-tions. The potential customers for this technology and the size of their markets are growing. According to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) UAV roadmap, the US DoD will invest over $4 billion inUAVs over the next decade. This will include a substantial investment in autonomous control systems technologies that significantly enhance the operational utility of UAVs by allowing a few, or even a single, operator(s) with minimal training toeffectively manage and control groups of vehicles. The integration of VACS with Playbook will open up many new opportunities within the UAV industry. The first anticipated customer within the DoD market will be the Organic Air Vehicle (OAV) component ofthe Future Combat System?s program headed by DARPA and the U.S. Army. Our research will also benefit key DoD initiatives, including the DARPA/Army?s Future Combat Systems program proper and the Navy?s Autonomous Operations, both of which will require morereliable autonomous and semi-autonomous systems technologies. We believe the proposed effort will provide the necessary technology that truly enables multiple vehicle command and control by a single operator in the Air Force?s Multi-Mission Command andControl Aircraft (MC2A), the Navy?s Multi Mission Aircraft (MMA), the Air Forces Next Generation Gunship program. Farther afield, there are a number of other consumers of variable-initiative human involvement with automation. Chief among these currentlyare those branches of NASA involved in deep space manned and unmanned exploration. Critical to realizing the revolutionary potential of UAVs and UCAVs in the battlefield is efficient autonomous guidance and control (G&C). It must be possible for a smallnumber of non-rated operators to simultaneously control multiple, diverse unmanned vehicles while concurrently engaged in other du-ties, and exposed to threats and interruptions. The proposed effort will develop a control system archi-tecture, calledP-VACS (Playbook-enhanced Variable Autonomy Control System), that meets these strin-gent demands through the synergistic integration of two state-of-the-art control approaches. Smart Infor-mation Flow Technologies? Playbook supervisory control systemprovides an integrated ?front end? to a control architecture that unifies variable initiative user input and intelligent planning capabilities to allow very high level tasking of UAV assets and smart, automated detection and replanning when initial plansgo awry. Geneva Aerospace, Inc.?s Variable Autonomy Control System provides a modular, integrated control architecture enabling management and control of multiple UAVs by a single operator via novel gradient control techniques. Unifying these twoapproaches will provide a uniquely powerful, autono-mous multi-UAV guidance and control system that enables cooperative control of groups of UAVs at flexible levels of autonomy by a single operator?even within the challenging domain of OAV control in urbanterrain.