A Search-Theoretic Approach to Cooperative Control for Uninhabited Air Vehicles

This paper explores the problem of cooperative search for stationary targets with multiple uninhabited air vehicles (UAVs). A search-theoretic approach based on “rate of return” maps is used to develop cooperative search plans for UAVs that try to approximate the optimal non-implementable search plan. The approach is illustrated by use of a simulation testbed for multiple searching UAVs and Monte Carlo simulation runs to evaluate our cooperative strategy relative to the optimal plan and relative to a noncooperative strategy.