A general control architecture for multiple vehicles

This paper presents a general architecture for the control of multiple vehicles based on the concept of generalized vehicle. This embodies an extension of the dynamically reconfigurable control architecture previously proposed by the authors (1994, 1995). Besides the capabilities of each vehicle inherent to the individual autonomy, the set of vehicles may be seen providing a pool of functionalists whose reconfiguration enables the emergence of a global features overcoming the single vehicle limitations. Unlike some other approaches, cooperation does not take place only at a deliberative level, but it results from a global coordination level implemented via an adequate protocol specified in the the global mission plan. The design of this architecture was driven by requirements extracted from the analysis of operational scenarios involving multiple vehicles