Cooperative Behavior and Control in Groups of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs)

"SUAVE (Simulated Unmanned Air Vehicle Experience)Big Fun, a commercial game development studio, proposes a novel approach to identifying superior strategies for UAV communication and cooperation.SUAVE is an accurate UAV simulation presented as entertainment - as a game.A variety of strategies under consideration are programmed into the game. It is published online, and played immediately by tens of thousands of individuals. Each player eagerly, intelligently, and uniquely challenges all these candidate strategies,seeking weaknesses.The game server monitors outcomes. Superior control structures very quickly emerge from the flawed ones. The bad are abandoned. The good are improved.Large, heterogenous databases of experience are collected overnight. By day, strategists can repair their wounded algorithms and send them back into battle, iterating nightly toward perfection.Better still, the game permits players to script their own strategies. The creative energy of a million minds is applied to both sides of the equation.This is the natural process of evolution - at warp speed. Like natural evolution, it exploits both dramatic developmental breakthroughs and microscopic refinements applied over and over. This project will produce a very capable web based unmanned air battle simulator. It will be available to large numbers of simultaneous participants. It will be accurate, secure and responsive. Aerial battles are an extremely popular gam