This dissertation describes a High-Order Central Command (HOCC) architecture and presents a flight demonstration where a single user coordinates 4 unmanned fixed-wing aircraft. HOCC decouples the user from control of individual vehicles, eliminating human limits on the size of the system, and uses a non-iterative sequence of algorithms that permit easy estimation of how computational complexity scales. The Hungarian algorithm used to solve a min-sum assignment with a one-task planning horizon becomes the limiting complexity, scaling at O(x3) where x is the larger number of vehicles or tasks in the assignment. This method is shown to have a unique property of creating non-intersecting routes which is used to drastically reduce the computational cost of deconflicting planned routes. Results from several demonstration flights are presented where a single user commands a system of 4 fixed-wing aircraft. The results confirm that autonomous flight of a large number of UAVs is a bona fide engineering sub-discipline, which is expected to be of interest to engineers who will find its utility in the aviation industry and in other emerging markets.
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