UAV mission planning under uncertainty

With the continued development of high endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) that are capable of performing autonomous fiunctions across the spectrum of military operations, one can envision a future military in which Air Component Commanders control forces comprised exclusively of unmanned vehicles. In order to properly manage and fully realize the capabilities of this UAV force, a control system must be in place that directs UAVs to targets and coordinates missions in a manner that provides an efficient allocation of resources. Additionally, a mission planner should account for the uncertainty inherent in the operations. Uncertainty, or stochasticity, manifests itself in most operations known to man. In the battlefield, such unknowns are especially real; the phenomenon is known as the fog of war. A good planner should develop plans that provide an efficient allocation of resources and take advantage of the system's true potential, while still providing ample "robustness" ill plans so that they are more likely executable and for a longer period of time.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Operations Research Center.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Sakamoto, Philemon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cynthia Barnhart.

• Operations Research Center.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36230

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36230