An Integrated Decision and Control Theoretic Solution to Multi-Agent Co-Operative Search Problems

This paper considers the problem of autonomous multi-agent cooperative target search in an unknown environment using a decentralized framework under a no-communication scenario. The targets are considered as static targets and the agents are considered to be homogeneous. The no-communication scenario translates as the agents do not exchange either the information about the environment or their actions among themselves. We propose an integrated decision and control theoretic solution for a search problem which generates feasible agent trajectories. In particular, a perception based algorithm is proposed which allows an agent to estimate the probable strategies of other agents' and to choose a decision based on such estimation. The algorithm shows robustness with respect to the estimation accuracy to a certain degree. The performance of the algorithm is compared with random strategies and numerical simulation shows considerable advantages.