Distributed Grouping Cooperative Dynamic Task Assignment Method of UAV Swarm

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 12; no. 6; p. 2865
• Main Authors: Qin, Boyu, Zhang, Dong, Tang, Shuo, Wang, Mengyang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2022
• Subjects: Adaptiveness; Algorithms; Benchmarks; Communication; Cooperation; distributed swarm; dynamic task planning; event-trigger; Heuristic; Optimization; swarm control; task assignment; Task complexity; Topology
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app12062865

Aiming at the problem of UAV swarms with distributed subsets performing cooperative reconnaissance-and-attack tasks on multi-targets in complex and uncertain combat scenarios, a distributed grouping cooperative dynamic task assignment method is proposed based on extended contract network protocol. The dynamic task assignment model for the UAV swarm with the topology of distributed subsets is established considering multiple constraints such as task cooperation, performing sequence, dynamic environment, communication topology, payload model, and UAV capability. According to the characteristics of multi-participants and multi-tasks in the process of UAV swarm executing tasks, the determination mechanism on cooperators and the selection mechanism of sequential tasks are proposed, and then the contract network protocol is extended. On the basis of the above, an event-triggered task assignment strategy for dynamic tasks is designed. The simulated results show that the proposed method can achieve the cooperative dynamic assignment of the UAV swarm to perform reconnaissance-and-attack tasks to multi-targets in complex and uncertain combat scenarios, improve the adaptiveness of the swarm under the sudden circumstance, and realize the optimization for task execution efficiency of the UAV swarm.