Coordination and control of multiple autonomous vehicles

The DARPA SIMNET project allows hundreds of soldiers to train together in a virtual air, land, and sea environment through a network of interactive simulators. In addition to the manned simulators, the virtual environment is also populated by a large number of autonomous vehicles called semi-automated forces, which are controlled by an operator at a single workstation. The authors address the issues of collision avoidance and formation keeping. The autonomous vehicles are responsible for the lower-level path planning, collision avoidance, and formation following. Routines are described for maneuvering among large obstacles, smaller objects, and moving vehicles