Hyunjin Choi/Youdan Kim/Hyounjin Kim
International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sicences, vol. 12, no. 2, pp.163-174, 2011

Abstract : This paper deals with a task assignment problem of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Task assignment problem is one of the decision making procedures of the UAV group, and it has been regarded as a combinatorial optimization problem. The problem has been usually dealt with as a centralized optimization approach, however it is not suitable to the dynamic environment because of the computational and communication complexities. To deal with this difficulty, a decentralized or distributed task assignment process is required. In this study, an on-line decentralized task assignment algorithm is proposed for the autonomous UAV group. Unlike the centralized task assignment, communications among UAVs should be considered particularly to deal with the dynamic environment. The proposed method is divided into two stages: the order optimization stage and the communications and negotiation stage. Genetic algorithm and negotiation strategy based on one-to-one communication is adopted for each stage. Through the proposed algorithm, decentralized task assignment can be performed for the problem in the dynamic environments with communication limit. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by performing the numerical simulations.

Keyword : Decentralized Task Assignment, Multiple UAVs, Combinatorial Optimization, Genetic Algorithm, Negotiation