Dynamic Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Multi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Collaboration Under Mine Countermeasures Missions

The task allocation of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is a crucial aspect of ocean exploration and mission execution tasks. In a mine countermeasures (MCM) combat scenario, when a new suspicious mission point is detected in the mission area, the heterogeneous multi-AUV system requires reallocation in real time. To address this, a soft time windows consensus-based bundle algorithm with partial reallocation (SWCBBA-PR) is designed. Based on the consensus-based bundle algorithm (CBBA), this algorithm comprehensively considers the underwater communication limitations and introduces the soft time window mechanism and partial reallocation mechanism. Its aim is to solve the partial reallocation problem that arises when new task points appear under the temporal-coupling constraints of complex underwater tasks. The SWCBBA-PR algorithm has been validated through simulation, demonstrating its ability to generate an optimal allocation scheme in the scenario of MCM mission emergence, and it exhibits good convergence performance.