Experimental demonstration of coordinated control for multi-vehicle teams

: This paper introduces two unique testbeds that have recently been developed at MIT to demonstrate coordination and control algorithms for teams of autonomous UAVs. The first testbed uses eight rovers and four blimps operated indoors to emulate a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles that could be used to perform a search and rescue mission. The second testbed uses eight small aircraft that are flown autonomously using a commercially available autopilot. This combination of testbeds provides platforms for both advanced research and very realistic demonstrations. Numerous trajectory optimization and team coordination algorithms have recently been developed to perform these missions. This paper highlights several algorithmic pieces of the system and typical results are presented for representative experiments in each of the testbeds. Copyright c 2004 IFAC

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: IJSYSC
• Authors: Ellis King, Yoshiaki Kuwata, Jonathan P. How
• Keywords: Autonomous UAVs, IJSYSC 2006, Numerous Trajectory Optimization, Team Coordination Algorithms