The architecture research for a multi-agent team cooperative mission management system

This article designs a cooperative mission management system (CMMS) architecture for a multi-agent team using the integrated method, which units the control center subsystem for the team mission assignment and the onboard management subsystem for the sole autonomous management in an effective way. The proposed “distributed architecture under the distributed center-control” distributes the control center subsystem on the ground station and the leading agent, whereas the onboard management subsystem on team members, assigning the system workload among the ground station and the agents logically. In this way, this architecture ensures the team´s flexibility and the system´s reliability. The designed onboard management subsystem, based on the concept of “operating system,” offers high level of autonomy and separates the specific dynamic characteristics of agents from the users by the way of hierarchism control so that the system can be used generally for a heterogeneous group of agents. The system´s modularization makes the system easier for function expansion and upgrading in the near future. The system is simulated on the test bed consisting of the Labview and the C language. And the results show that the designed system can satisfy the requirements of a multi-agent team cooperative mission management fully.