Method of cooperative control for UAVs (Uninhabited Air Vehicles) using search theory

We take concepts from search theory^[1] to help design cooperative search strategy of multiple UAVs (uninhabited air vehicles) for attacking stationary targets. We use the search-theoretic approach based on 'rate of return' maps to develop the cooperative search strategy that guides the movement of a group of UAVs so as to get as close to optimal non-implementable search plan as possible. The approach is illustrated by use of a simulation test bed for multiple searching UAVs and Monte Carlo simulation runs to evaluate the cooperative strategy relative to the optimal plan and relative to a noncooperative strategy. Finally we give a simulation example. Numeral results after 100 Monte Carlo runs, as computed by eq. (6) of the full paper, are respectively 415 s for noncooperative strategy, 206s for optimal plan, and 153 s for cooperative strategy; these results show preliminarily the usefulness of cooperative strategy. On the other hand, we admit that our research makes the assumption that all information in the war zone are instantly available; this assumption is quite different from the real situation in the war zone; how to develop cooperative strategy for real situation in the war zone needs much further research.