AUTOPILOT

A Distributed Planner for Air Fleet Control

Perry W. Thorndyke, David J. McArthur, Stephanie J. Cammarata

Published 1981

Distributed planning requires both architectures for structuring multiple planners and techniques for planning, communication, and cooperation. The authors describe a family of systems for distributed control of multiple aircraft, in which each aircraft plans its own flight path and avoids collisions with other aircraft. AUTOPILOT, the kernel planner used by each aircraft, comprises several processing "experts" that share a common world model. These experts sense the world, plan and evaluate flight paths, communicate with other aircraft, and control plan execution. Four architectures are discussed for the distribution of airspace management and planning responsibility among the several aircraft occupying the airspace at any point in time. The architectures differ in the extent of cooperation and communication among aircraft.

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web Only
  • Year: 1981
  • Pages: 34
  • Document Number: N-1731-ARPA

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Thorndyke, Perry W., David J. McArthur, and Stephanie J. Cammarata, AUTOPILOT: A Distributed Planner for Air Fleet Control. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1981. https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N1731.html.
BibTeX RIS

This publication is part of the RAND note series. The note was a product of RAND from 1979 to 1993 that reported miscellaneous outputs of sponsored research for general distribution.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.