Behavior Trees for UAV Mission Management

Behavior trees are a recent development in artificial intelligence for computer games. Their application has been proposed to increase modularity of an unmanned aerial vehicle’s control system. This paper first describes advantages of behavior trees for use in mission management. The paper then points out research towards their deployment. Finally, newly developed transient tasks are introduced to behavior trees. These allow for finite-state-machine-like initialization and interruption of tasks. The use of the system is demonstrated with an unmanned aircraft mission simulation.