Hierarchical Task Assignment and Communication Algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flocks

For the large-scale operations of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm and the large number of UAVs, this paper proposes a two-layer task and resource assignment algorithm based on feature weight clustering. According to the numbers and types of task resources of each UAV and the distances between different UAVs, the UAV swarm is divided into multiple UAV clusters, and the large-scale allocation problem is transformed into several related small-scale problems. A two-layer task assignment algorithm based on the consensus-based bundle algorithm (CBBA) is proposed, and this algorithm uses different consensus rules between clusters and within clusters, which ensures that the UAV swarm gets a conflict-free task assignment solution in real time. The simulation results show that the algorithm can assign tasks effectively and efficiently when the number of UAVs and targets is large.

This works develops a novel hierarchical algorithm for task assignment (TA), coordination and communication of multiple UAVs engaging multiple targets and conceives an ad-hoc routing algorithm for synchronization of target lists utilizing a distributed computing topology. Assuming limited communication bandwidth and range, coordination of UAV motion is achieved by implementing a simple behavioral flocking algorithm utilizing a tree topology for target list routing. The TA algorithm is based on a graph-theoretic approach, in which a node locates all the detectable targets, identifies them and computes its distance to each target. The node then produces an attack plan that minimizes the sum of distances of the UAVs in the subtree of a given node to the targets. Simulation experiments show that the combination of flocking and TA algorithms gives the best performance. Clear-cut advantages of the TA algorithm are shown to exist in cases where the hit probability tends to one. An improvement of efficiency, representing the ratio between killed targets and the number of missile launches, is obtained for larger numbers of UAVs only if the engagement times are long enough, utilizing the improved coverage achieved by more UAVs.

This paper investigates the duration-aware task assignment problem for heterogeneous mobility users in MCS (DTAH problem). There are two types of users in MCS, vehicle users and pedestrian users. The vehicle user gets to the task fast, but the task duration is short. Pedestrian user meets the task duration limit, but it takes a long time to reach the task. Given a set of tasks and two types of users, each user, and each task has a duration limit. The DTAH problem is how to assign tasks to maximize the utility of the system. We prove that the DTAH problem is NP-hard by reducing the weighted maximum set coverage problem to the DTAH problem. Then, we solve the problem from a pedestrian perspective and a vehicle perspective. From the pedestrian user perspective, we propose a pedestrian user task assignment (PTA) algorithm based on the Kuhn-Munkres algorithm. From the vehicle user perspective, we propose a greedy vehicle user task assignment (VTA) algorithm. We prove that the VTA algorithm can obtain the approximate ratio of 1-1/e to the optimal value. Finally, we design the heterogeneous user task assignment (HTA) algorithm based on these PTA and VTA algorithms. Extensive experiments have proved that our proposed HTA algorithm achieves more efficient performance than other comparison algorithms.

Using multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to perform some tasks cooperatively has received growing attention in recent years. Task assignment is a difficult problem in mission planning. Multiple tasks assignment problem for cooperating homogeneous UAVs is considered as a traditional combinatorial optimization problem. This paper addresses the problem of assigning multiple tasks to cooperative homogeneous UAVs, minimizing the total cost and balancing the cost of each UAV. We propose a centralized task assignment scheme which is based on minimum spanning tree. This scheme involves two phases. In the first phase, we use the Kruskal algorithm and the breadth first search algorithm to assign all tasks to UAVs and get a proper initial task assignment solution. The second phase involves the Pareto optimization improvement in the solution generated from the first phase. For a single UAV, we use the dynamic programming algorithm to calculate the total cost of completing all assigned tasks. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared to that of heuristic simulated annealing algorithm. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can solve the homogeneous multi-UAV cooperative task assignment problem effectively.

A distributed algorithm for task assignment (TA) is one of the most important issues in multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) environment. Most studies are the efficient task assignment decision between UAVs for solving specific problems. In this paper, we will propose an approach for handling faults in communication while multiple UAVs for cooperation and coordination. We will also discuss a fault tolerance scheme for the procedure.

The existing task assignment algorithms usually solve only a point-based model. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for task assignment in detection search tasks. Firstly, the optimal reconnaissance path is generated by considering the drone’s position and attitude information, as well as the type of heterogeneous targets present in the actual scene. Subsequently, an adaptive crowding distance calculation (ACD-NSGA-II) is proposed based on the relative position of solutions in space, taking into account the spatial distribution of parent solutions and constraints imposed by uncertain targets and terrain. Finally, comparative experiments using digital simulation are conducted under two different target probability scenarios. Moreover, the improved algorithm is further evaluated across 100 cases, and a comparison of the Pareto solution set with other algorithms is conducted to demonstrate the algorithm’s overall adaptability.

Automatic collaborative water surface coverage and cleaning strategy of UAV and USVs

With the advent of semi-autonomous robotic assistance systems, their integration into human teams is starting to gain steam as part of the vision of human+machine hybrid activities. Unlike their fully autonomous counterparts, semi-autonomous robotic systems mainly rely on human assistance from time to time via teleoperation when human expertise is needed to accomplish a given task. As these robots will need to request human assistance via teleoperation, mapping these requests to human teleoperators stands as a difficult optimization problem. In this paper, after shedding some light on our envisioned FiWi enhanced network infrastructure and its role in realizing the emerging Tactile Internet, we formulate the problem of joint prioritized scheduling and assignment of delay-constrained teleoperation tasks to human operators with the objective to minimize the average weighted task completion time, maximum tardiness, and average operational expenditure (OPEX) per task. We then propose our context-aware prioritized scheduling and task assignment (CAPSTA) algorithm to achieve suitable trade-offs between the contradicting objectives of the problem. Further, to estimate the end-to-end packet delay of local and non-local teleoperation over FiWi enhanced networks, we develop our analytical framework, which flexibly allows for the coexistence of conventional human-to-human (H2H) and haptic human-to-machine (H2M) traffic.

In this paper, a hierarchical framework for task assignment and path planning of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a dynamic environment is presented. For multi-agent scenarios in dynamic environments, a candidate algorithm should be able to replan for a new path to perform the updated tasks without any collision with obstacles or other agents during the mission. In this paper, we propose an intersection-based algorithm for path generation and a negotiation-based algorithm for task assignment since these algorithms are able to generate admissible paths at a smaller computing cost. The path planning algorithm is also augmented with a potential field-based trajectory replanner, which solves for a detouring trajectory around other agents or pop-up obstacles. For validation, test scenarios for multiple UAVs to perform cooperative missions in dynamic environments are considered. The proposed algorithms are implemented on a fixed-wing UAVs testbed in outdoor environment and showed satisfactory performance to accomplish the mission in the presence of static and pop-up obstacles and other agents.

Pipelined execution of streaming applications enable processing of high-throughput data under performance constraint. We present an integrated approach to synthesizing pipelined software for dual-core architectures. We target streaming applications modeled as task graphs that are amenable to static analysis. We develop a versatile task assignment algorithm that considers the combined effect of workload imbalance between processors and inter-processor communication. Our technique, which runs in pseudo-linear time, provably maximizes application throughput. Furthermore, we develop an approximation algorithm for task assignment whose complexity is strictly polynomial. It provides the designer with an adjustable knob to controllably trade solution quality with algorithm runtime and memory requirement. Empirical throughput measurements using an FPGA-based dual-core system validate our theoretical results. Our exact algorithm consistently outperforms a recent competitor. Compared to exact task assignment, the approximate method runs about 3 times faster, requires about 20 times less memory, and results in only 1% to 5% throughput loss.

The periodic task set assignment problem in the context of multiple processors has been studied for decades. Different heuristic approaches have been proposed, such as the Best-Fit (BF), the First-Fit (FF), and the Worst-Fit (WF) task assignment algorithms. However, when processors are not dedicated but only periodically available to the task set, whether existing approaches still provide good performance or if there is a better task assignment approach in the new context are research problems which, to our best knowledge, have not been studied by the real-time research community. In this paper, we present the Best-Harmonically-Fit (BHF) task assignment algorithm to assign periodic tasks on multiple periodic resources. By periodic resource we mean that for every fixed time interval, i.e., the period, the resource always provides the same amount of processing capacity to a given task set. Our formal analysis indicates that if a harmonic task set is also harmonic with a resource's period, the resource capacity can be fully utilized by the task set. Based on this analysis, we present the Best-Harmonically-Fit task assignment algorithm. The experimental results show that, on average, the BHF algorithm results in $53.26$ , $42.54$ , and $27.79$ percent higher resource utilization rate than the Best-Fit Decreasing (BFD), the First-Fit Decreasing (FFD), and the Worst-Fit Decreasing (WFD) task assignment algorithms, respectively; but comparing to the optimal resource utilization rate found by exhaustive search, it is about $11.63$ percent lower.

Task assignment and scheduling algorithms for heterogeneous computing systems can be classified as iterative and non-iterative techniques, and are designed to optimize a specific cost function defined on the system. The quality of the solutions generated is controlled by the nature of this cost metric. The common metrics that are used include minimizing the overall execution time or minimizing the load on the maximum loaded processor. In this work, a new set of cost metrics have been proposed that can be used by iterative task assignment algorithms. These metrics exploit the fact that in iterative algorithms the mapping of the subtasks to the processors is known at every iteration. They reflect the actual scheduling cost of the application, thereby improving the quality of the solutions generated by the algorithm. The proposed metrics are evaluated using a learning automata based iterative algorithm. Observations are made regarding the nature of the metrics from the results obtained.

SRAMs are aimed at multiprocessing

A number of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are tasked to search an unknown/uncertain environment, and neutralize targets whenever they come across such threats. Due to resource constraints of the UAVs, neutralizing some threats require simultaneous effort of a certain number of UAVs in minimum. When a UAV detects multiple such targets which require team efforts, it needs to communicate with its neighbour UAVs asking for their cooperation to form colaitions to neutralize the targets. Since the involved entities are dynamic in nature, a UAV may have to terminate information exchange with its neighbours within a few iterative steps so that the decision making process can be finished before any topological change takes place. Moreover, due to sensor range and communication bandwidth limitations, a UAV cannot know about other tasks available to its neighbours in an instantaneous manner. Through communication, UAVs can learn correspondence between their own utilities and utilities of the neighbour UAVs to different joint action profiles, but not the decisions of other UAVs. We formulate the problem that a UAV faces when it detects multiple such targets and needs to decide as to which target it should try to neutralize, given the uncertainty over the decisions of its neighbour UAVs, in a game theoretic framework. We propose a correlated equilibrium concept based decentralized game theoretic solution that requires local information of the UAVs.

We consider the scenario of wireless sensor networks where a given application has to be deployed and each application task has to be assigned to each node in the best possible way. Approaches where decisions on task execution are taken by a single central node can avoid the exchange of data packets between task execution nodes but cannot adapt to dynamic network conditions, and suffer from computational complexity. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose an adaptive and decentralized task allocation negotiation algorithm (TAN) for cluster network topologies. It is based on noncooperative game theory, where neighboring nodes engage in negotiations to maximize their own utility functions to agree on which of them should execute single application tasks. Performance is evaluated in a city scenario, where the urban streets are equipped with different sensors and the application target is the detection of the fastest way to reach a destination, and in random WSN scenarios. Comparisons are made with three other algorithms: 1) baseline setting with no task assignment to multiple nodes; 2) centralized task assignment lifetime optimization; and 3) a dynamic distributed algorithm, DLMA. The result is that TAN outperforms these algorithms in terms of application completion time and average energy consumption.