Distributed Sensing and UAV Scheduling for Surveillance and Tracking of Unidentifiable Targets

摘要

This paper presents an automated decentralized surveillance system for the problem of tracking multiple mobile ground targets with no signature in a bounded area. The system consists of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unattended fixed ground sensors (UGSs) with limited communication and detection range that are deployed in the area of interest. Each component of the system (UAV and/or Sensor) is completely autonomous and programmed to scan the area searching for targets and share its knowledge with other components within communication range. UAV scheduling of the areas to search is stochastic and the characterizing probability distributions are determined through hypotheses of consistent tracks of target observations. Such hypotheses are formulated by a client subsystem called Process Query System, which is queried with streams of incoming observations of targets and stochastic models of their kinematics. The purpose of this work is also to provide a quantitative measure of the situational awareness of the monitoring system in relation to the accuracy of the target models and the degree of decentralization of the control.