Synthesis of Strategies for Integrated Mission Planning, Resource Management, and Information Acquisition

Abstract

The objective of this proposal is to develop theory and algorithms for integrated mission planning, resource management, and information acquisition for autonomous agents. It focuses on scalability in the presence of possibly competing constraints due to the underlying mission, resources, and information limitations in uncertain environments. The proposed effort comprises two thrusts on theory and algorithm development and one thrust to specialize the algorithms to and test them in a representative case study. Thrust I will build on two novel modeling frameworks#consumption Markov decision processes and uncertain partially observable Markov decision processes#to develop algorithms that account for three types of complications: resource limitations, limitations in prior knowledge, and need for run-time acquisition of information. Furthermore, multi-agent operations require distributed computation and implementation of strategies. Thrust II will address this need by developing compositional synthesis algorithms for modular Markov decision processes and cooperative Markov games. The resulting strategies will reduce the reliance of individual agents on information about the other agents. Thrust III will demonstrate and test the resulting algorithms in a case study on debris detection, a sanitized representative of a larger class of use cases, including minesweeping and other expeditionary underwater exploration.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Nov 09, 2024
Source ID
N000142412797

Entities

People

  • Ufuk Topcu

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • United States Navy
  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Naval Mine Countermeasure Systems Development.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.