Coupling Consensus Based Tasks with Subsumption Architecture for UAS Swarm Based Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Operations

Abstract

This paper investigates the controls problem of coupling consensus based tasks with a behavioral based algorithm like subsumption architecture and used in tracking of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles working in dynamic and distributed environments. Distributed autonomous systems continue to grow in complexity and remain a challenging and interesting research topic. The system is designed such that each vehicle requires only a local information exchange, with out the need to communicate with a global central system. A general class of state and input transformation is utilized to convert a tracking problem into a consensus like time-varying problem. We have successfully implemented a swarm of autonomous aerial vehicles, by integrating a consensus based task allocation system with a behavior based system that works by concepts of subsumption architecture. This work focuses on integrating a decentralized task planning algorithm called Consensus Based Bundled Algorithm with a true behavior based exploratory architecture called Subsumption Architecture in order to exploit the best features of both these architectures. An improvement in the framework was observed in the task allocation when a relationship coupling logic was implemented. It is proposed that if the parent task is considered by an agent and executes the entire bundle, planning the reassignment of tasks are not necessary during the consensus based tasking. This planned task set can be re-assigned dynamically during run-time by the Subsumption Architecture, when implemented on a system that has an on-board autonomy and computing system. We implement this combined framework for the task of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance.