Human-guided management of collaborating unmanned vehicles in degraded communication environments

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) currently fulfill important roles in modern military operations. Present commitments to research and development efforts for future UASs indicate that their ubiquity and the scope of their applications will only continue to increase. For sophisticated UASs characterized by coordination of multiple vehicles, it is a formidable challenge to maintain an understanding of the complexities arising from the interaction of human supervisory control, automated planning, and network communication. This research investigates the robustness of UAS performance under degraded communication conditions through simulation with a particular futuristic UAS, the On-board Planning System for UxVs in Support of Expeditionary Reconnaissance and Surveillance (OPS-USERS) system. The availability of reliable communications is vital to the success of current UASs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Southern, Daniel Noel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mary L. Cummings.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

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/1721.1/61578

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/61578