Intelligent management of constrained links for distributed autonomy

This paper addresses one of the main underlying obstacles overlooked when adding autonomy to a cooperative cluster of nodes working together to complete global objectives. Whether these nodes are ground, sea, air, or space vehicles, a constrained link is used to distribute information between the vehicles. The limited bandwidth of the constrained link must be shared between all nodes and becomes a pinch point for distributed autonomy. Intelligently managing the shared information and controlling how it is replicated across all nodes is vital. Lack of communication results in poor team performance. Intermittent connectivity and delayed intelligence sharing leads to the cooperative cluster performing no better or even worse than a single node as the team acts and reacts to misinformation. This paper describes solutions to the challenges encountered when distributing information across constrained links by utilizing application layer routing to apply quality of service (QoS) operations on a per-route basis and creating a unique method to pass generic objects of information in a prioritized manner.