Helble, Sarah (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), Guinn, Andrew (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), Blake, Joshua (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

Appraisal of Autonomous Swarms through Analysis of Observed Behavior

Scheduled for presentation during the Poster Session "Poster Papers Session" (FrPS), Friday, June 18, 2021, 09:45−10:00, Foyer, Mezzanine Level

2021 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), June 15-18, 2021, Athens, Greece

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 26, 2024

Abstract

Swarms of autonomous vehicles are capable of performing complex missions in a variety of applications. Functions inherent to these missions include obstacle avoidance and collaboration with other swarm members. The logic for guiding autonomous agents through these functions can result in unanticipated emergent behaviors. Commanders of complex autonomous missions need a way to gain confidence in a swarm's behavior and detect adversarial behavior at runtime without inhibiting operations. The research described in this paper explores using measurements and analysis of external, observable characteristics, such as location data, to detect adversarial behavior in a simulated homogeneous swarm for a set of well-defined use cases. Initial results using directional and positional entropy of individual agents and the DBSCAN clustering algorithm demonstrate that measurements of external characteristics are a promising addition to a commander's toolset. Further research should be performed to determine the applicability to a broader set of use cases.