Task Assignment and Exploration Optimization for Low Altitude UAV Rescue via Generative AI Enhanced Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

The integration of emerging uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) with artificial intelligence (AI) and ground-embedded robots (GERs) has transformed emergency rescue operations in unknown environments. However, the high computational demands often exceed a single UAV's capacity, making it difficult to continuously provide stable high-level services. To address this, this paper proposes a cooperation framework involving UAVs, GERs, and airships. The framework enables resource pooling through UAV-to-GER (U2G) and UAV-to-airship (U2A) links, offering computing services for offloaded tasks. Specifically, we formulate the multi-objective problem of task assignment and exploration as a dynamic long-term optimization problem aiming to minimize task completion time and energy use while ensuring stability. Using Lyapunov optimization, we transform it into a per-slot deterministic problem and propose HG-MADDPG, which combines the Hungarian algorithm with a GDM-based multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient. Simulations demonstrate significant improvements in offloading efficiency, latency, and system stability over baselines.