Autonomous Decision-Making Applied onto UAV Formation Flight

Abstract

This paper deals with the decision-making process, as required within an autonomously operating unmanned air vehicle. After describing the elements of this process and their interaction, formation flight is chosen as an example to explain the concept. Formation flight drives the basic concept to a new level of complexity, since it not only involves the decision making process within one aircraft, but also requires the decision making process to autonomously organize a group of aircraft. This is illustrated by the building, the maintaining and the breakup of a formation. Comparisons to human decision making show that the basic concept of decision making can be similar in between machines and human.