Multi-Agent Technology for Airspace Control in the Combat Zone

摘要

Successful airspace control is one of the key factors maximizing the effectiveness of air operations. It includes long and short-term planning and control that utilizes large and dynamic databases, and constitutes a combination of resource allocation, routing, scheduling, and deconfliction tasks performed repeatedly reflecting the battlefield dynamics. These tasks place heavy burden on personnel, leading to costly inefficiencies. Modern computing technologies are capable of expanding the share of airspace control functions performed by computers resulting in numerically justified decisions that will enhance planning and reduce pressure on its personnel without freeing them from the ultimate responsibility. The resultant problem is to be decomposed and its particular subsets are obtained in a decentralized, but coordinated fashion. This approach is best served by the 'multi-agent' system technology that has been successfully deployed as the computational engine behind the airspace control system. The resultant software tool features the distributed coordination mechanisms based on collective decision-making and knowledge sharing, agent architecture and specific agents responsible for data collection/updating and planning/scheduling/deconfliction tasks, and the required visualization technology.