Cooperative Task Allocation for Unmanned Vehicles with Communication Delays and Conflict Resolution

This paper presents a framework for multi-agent cooperative decision making under communication constraints. Piece-wise optimal decentralized allocation of tasks for a group of unmanned aerial vehicles is considered. Each vehicle estimates the position of all teammates in order to assign tasks based on these estimates, and it also implements event-based broadcasting strategies that allow the group of agents to use communication resources more efficiently. The agents implement a simple decentralized auction scheme in order to resolve possible conflicts. This framework is extended to re-plan assignments when a sequence of tasks is disrupted by wind disturbance. Further, the effects of wind disturbance are also included in the task assignment process by assuming a fixed steady wind value. The overall framework provides a robust and communication-efficient approach for decentralized task allocation in the presence of communication constraints and external uncertainties.