Distributed Task Scheduling Subject To Arbitrary Constraints

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a distributed scheduling problem and a distributed algorithm to solve it. The problem is motivated by military missions where tasks are assigned to various vehicles and tasks must be scheduled to satisfy constraints between them. The distributed scheduling algorithm is capable of finding a solution in the presence of arbitrary scheduling constraints, e.g., logical or temporal constraints. These types of missions present the challenge of planning using computer systems that are distributed in the sense of information and authority. This motivates the development of distributed planning algorithms that can overcome these challenges. The distributed scheduling algorithm used here is demonstrated on an example involving two unmanned air vehicles and two unmanned ground vehicles and is shown to be correct and complete.