Patent ID: 7451023

Claim:
A system for collaboratively and autonomously planning and controlling a team of unmanned vehicles within an environment, said system comprising: a mission planning component for creating a mission plan for a plurality of members of the team of unmanned vehicles, said mission planning component creating a task plan for an each said member based on the mission plan, said mission planning component deconflicting the task plans based on a changing situation of the environment, said mission planning component updating the mission plan and the task plans based on the changing situation of the environment; a collaboration component for assigning members to the team and roles for the assigned members, said collaboration component updating membership and roles of the members based on the changing situation of the environment; a situational awareness component for evaluating the changing situation of the environment based on information from the assigned members of the team; a contingency management component for monitoring the changing situation of the environment, changes of capabilities of the assigned members of the team, and execution of the mission plan and task plans, said contingency management component determining whether to update any of the group consisting of the mission plan and the task plans; and a vehicle management component for controlling movement of each assigned member based on the task plan of each assigned member.