Several unmanned vehicle (UV) programs envision a future in which unmanned vehicles work together in teams and are controlled by a single operator acting in a supervisory role. The JUCAS concept involves a single operator controlling a group of four Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs). The Air Force plans to use teams of Predators and armed Predator Bs to perform hunter-killer missions. Both the Navy's Joint Unmanned Systems Common Control (JUSC2) ACTD and the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) include teaming concepts for multiple types of unmanned systems. Most current mission planning tools fall short of true multi-vehicle planning and control. Some planning tools only provide mission planning for a single vehicle type. Others are designed for multiple vehicle types, but only plan and control one vehicle at a time. This paper reviews the multi-vehicle mission planning problem, describes mission planning technologies, and discusses three ORCA multi-vehicle planning research efforts: Multi-Vehicle Mission Planner, an on-going Phase II SBIR for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City; Adaptive Levels of Autonomy (ALOA) for UAV Supervisory Control, a recently completed Phase II SBIR for AFRL/HECI; and the Boeing Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) effort, in which ORCA was a subcontractor to Boeing.
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