Autonomous Team Formation and Task Negotiation Among Unmanned Vehicles

• US 20180101171A1
• Filed: 10/10/2016
• Published: 04/12/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Southwest Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Southwest Research Institute
• Inventors: Lemmer, Stephan J., Mott, Cameron R., Avery, Paul A.
• Granted Patent: US 10,432,729 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/22 Platooning, i.e. convoy of communicating vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 3/02 Anti-collision systems
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0069 specially adapted for an unmanned aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/46 for vehicle-to-vehicle communication [V2V]

Abstract

A system of autonomous vehicles for forming a team of autonomous vehicles to perform a designated set of tasks. Each vehicle stores data representing its own capabilities that match the tasks, data representing needed capabilities for the team to perform the tasks, and data representing the capabilities of all current team members. Each of the vehicles is equipped with a communications system operable to send and receive join request messages and join response messages. All join request message contain the capabilities of the sending vehicle. All join response messages contain current team capabilities data. Upon receipt of a join request message, a vehicle compares needed capabilities data to the received capabilities data, and if there are matched capabilities, it updates the team capabilities data and transmits a join response message. Upon receipt of a join response message, if the message indicates the sending vehicle has joined the team, the receiving vehicle updates the team capabilities list.

Claims

1. A system of autonomous vehicles for forming a team of autonomous vehicles to perform a designated set of tasks:

a first autonomous vehicle having a first stored set of agent capability data representing those of the tasks that the first autonomous vehicle is able to perform;

a second autonomous vehicle having a second stored set of agent capability data representing those of the tasks that the second autonomous vehicle is able to perform;

one or more additional autonomous vehicles each having an additional set of agent stored capability data representing those of the tasks that the additional autonomous vehicle is able to perform;

wherein each autonomous vehicles further stores needed capability data representing capabilities needed to perform the designated set of tasks, and further stores team capability data representing the capabilities of all vehicles who have joined the team;

wherein each of the autonomous vehicles is equipped with a communications system operable to send and receive at least the following types of messages;

join request messages and join response messages;

wherein each join request message contains received agent capabilities data representing the sending vehicle'"'"'s capabilities;

wherein each join response message contains team capabilities data representing the capabilities of all current team members;

wherein each of the autonomous vehicles is programmed, upon receipt of a join request message, to compare the needed capabilities data to the received capabilities data, thereby determining if there are matched capabilities, and if there are matched capabilities, to update the team capabilities data and to transmit a join response message;

wherein each of the autonomous vehicles is programmed, upon receipt of a join response message from a sending vehicle, if the message indicates the sending vehicle has joined the team, to update the team capabilities data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the first set of capabilities, the second set of capabilities, and the additional set of capabilities each comprise at least one unique capability.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the first set of capabilities, the second set of capabilities, and the additional set of capabilities each comprise at least one overlapping capability.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one agent has a perception sensor capability.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one agent has a robotic manipulation capability.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein each agent is equipped with a navigation system.