Analysis of Centralized and Decentralized Communication and Decision Making for Cooperating Autonomous UAVs

Abstract: This thesis describes the work performed at Saab Aeronautics in Linkoping during 2011. The work was to study and develop distributed and centralized methods for analysis of the decision making in a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In addition to this, some simple scenarios were studied and the work was implemented in C++ as the simulator ComDec. The literature review presented in the report provides knowledge of strategies for collaborative UAVs (communication and decision making), understanding of the problems/constraints that are relevant for data links and insight into the algorithms for decision making and autonomy. This work has resulted in a theoretical analysis of suitable design for decision making in a group of interacting autonomous UAVs. Existing methods for distributed and centralized decision making are implemented and a demonstration ofthe outcome are presented in the thesis. It is further shown how various communication problems and disturbances affect the decision making process. Finally, advantages and disadvantages of the selected strategies (communication and decision making) are discussed.