Key scientific problems in cooperation control of unmanned-manned aircraft systems

Abstract

Cooperation of unmanned-manned aircraft systems can accelerate technology adaptability, enhance the combat capabilities in adversary conditions, achieve complementary advantages, and form new and efficient combat systems, which are important for guaranteeing arms control. The key to obtaining the "1 + 1 > 2" combat effectiveness is cooperative control, i.e., autonomous cooperation of unmanned and manned aircraft with the minimum supervision of a pilot. This study provides a survey of the development of unmanned-manned cooperation and a systematic review of the technology system based on the "Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action" (OODA) loop. Our study focuses on multi-aircraft autonomous cooperation in the loop and human-robot intelligent cooperation outside the loop. Finally, we summarize the research focus in the future.

From animal collective behaviors to swarm robotic cooperation

“…The level of swarm autonomy (LOA) can be roughly divided into three ranks: manual, mixed-initiative and fully autonomous LOA [ 116 ]. Three basic modes of unmanned-manned cooperation under the confrontational situation are given in [ 117 ]. A fully centralized mode represents the unmanned systems cooperating with the human operator.…”