A cooperative control testbed architecture for smart loitering weapons

The Cooperative Attack Testbed (CAT) was conceived as a tool for validating research in cooperative control of groups of smart, loitering weapons and Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). The CAT is a real-time testbed built on the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) architecture that integrates five and six degree-of-freedom dynamic models of up to 64 Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS) wide area search weapons, with mission planning tools, models of the release aircraft, a simulation of wireless communication between weapons via 802.11b type protocols, and a synchronous unmanned aircraft in-the-loop. The goals of cooperative attack include enhancing weapon performance and increasing battlefield situational awareness. By sharing information on their own states and the state of their observations, weapons or UAVs may re-plan trajectories in-flight, determine what targets to attack, and increase the probability of target detection and classification. The weapon or UAV entities may also exchange sensor information with off-board sensors and control authorities. We describe the cooperative control architecture that motivated the testbed design, the components and uses of the testbed, and plans for future developments.