Decentralized Control Strategies for Unmanned Aircraft System Pursuit and Evasion

Pursuit and evasion game related tasks are one application area envisioned for future multi- vehicle Unmanned Aircraft systems (UAs). Pursuit and evasion games relate to tasks such as search and rescue operations, surveillance, and search and capture missions. They include two sub-tasks of finding evaders and then capturing them. Because there are two sub-tasks, there are different roles that each pursuer must take on during the game. This paper examines the amount of communication required to determine what role each UAs pursuer should take to achieve a quick location and capture of the evader. Results demonstrate that more robust internal control strategies offset role communication when the communications become limited.