Publisher's Synopsis
Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is a high-demand Department of Defense mission performed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) at the tactical and theater levels. Coordinating UAS aircraft through cooperative control offers the advantages of persistence, distributed and adaptable sensor coverage, and reduced revisit time on points of interest. The purpose of this thesis is to apply systems engineering principals to the problem of developing a flexible, common control system for cooperative UAS surveillance at the tactical level. The AFIT team developed a concept of operations (CONOPS) encompassing various users and surveillance tasks. The team then used the scenarios in the CONOPS to build a conceptual architecture.
