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A game theoretic approach to coordinating unmanned aerial vehicles with communications payloads

This thesis considers the placement of two or more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to provide communications to a community of ground mobiles. The locations for the UAVs are decided by the outcome of a non-cooperative game in which the UAVs compete to maximize their coverage of the mobiles. The game allows navigation decisions to be made onboard the UAVs with the effect of increasing coverage, reducing the need for a central planning function, and increasing the autonomy of the UAVs. 
A non-cooperative game that includes the key system elements is defined and simulated. The thesis compares methods for solving the game to evaluate their performance. A conflict between the quality of the solution and the time required to obtain that solution is identified and explored. It considers how the payload calculations could be used to modify the behaviour of the UAVs, and the sensitivity of the game to resource limitations such as RF power and radio spectrum. It finishes by addressing how the game could be scaled from two UAVs to many UAVs, and the constraints imposed by current methods for solving games.