A game theoretic approach to team dynamics and tactics in mixed initiative control of automa-teams

The planning and operational hierarchy in future combat systems that involve unmanned aerial vehicles will very likely consist of three levels: a team composition and tasking (TCT) level, a team dynamics and tactics (TDT) level, and a cooperative path planning (CPP) level. In this paper, we discuss a game theoretic approach for the target assignment problem at the TDT level. This problem considers the issue of assigning tasks to individual UAVs which could involve attacking one or more fighting units on the other side. The approach considered in this paper involves estimating the reaction of the other side for every possible UAV target assignment that could be made and calculating the resulting Nash equilibrium solution. We discuss an algorithm for determining the Nash solution which overcomes issues related to scalability and is capable of handling target assignments with a large number of non-homogeneous units on each side. In this paper, we discuss both the open-loop and feedback implementations off this algorithm and present simulation results that can be used to assess their performance. Our simulation results show that the availability of sensor information on target damage, as the battle progresses, will allow the feedback implementation at the TDT level to optimally allocate the available UAV resources by avoiding the assignment of tasks that have already been satisfactorily accomplished, either fully or partially. We also introduce the concept of distance discount factor (DDF) to address the fact that targeting close but less significant targets could be more rewarding than targeting far but more significant units. We discuss and compare the results of the feedback implementation with and without DDF.