[DMO] Lander Verlinde: Optimal planning of autonomous reconnaissance missions

14 maart 2024 11:00 t/m 12:00 - Locatie: EEMCS Lecture Hall Chip, 36.HB.01.600 | Zet in mijn agenda

This talk will be about the research that I have done at the Netherlands Defence Academy during my internship. Under the supervision of Relinde Jurrius, I investigated how to optimise reconnaissance missions by autonomous systems. A reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines is a complex and dangerous task which should be carefully planned, even when performed by unmanned drones. Starting from a secure base, multiple surveillance locations need to be safely reached and the acquired information has to be transferred back to the base. Such a transfer can be achieved by transmitting information to the base or by physically returning it. However, each action in the mission carries the risk of detection – the drone could be spotted during movement, or transmissions might be intercepted. This task gives rise to a graph where the edge weights are the probabilities to safely cross without being spotted and the vertex weights are the probabilities of safely transmitting information. If information is not transmitted at a vertex, it is carried to the next one, where a new choice between transmitting or continuing is presented. The goal of the research was to find the route and send strategy which maximise the expected value of the amount of information that safely reaches the base.