2018/05/11 by Parikshit Maini, Maini, Parikshit, Kaarthik Sundar +5
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · Engineering · #Aerospace Engineering and Control Systems #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Facility Location and Emergency Management #Optimization and Search Problems #Robotic Path Planning Algorithms #Robotics (cs.RO) #UAV Applications and Optimization
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1805.04417
openalex publication_date 2018/05/11 · openalex created_date 2022/08/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Low cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) need multiple refuels to accomplish\nlarge area coverage. The number of refueling stations and their placement plays\na vital role in determining coverage efficiency. In this paper, we propose the\nuse of a ground-based refueling vehicle (RV) to increase the operational range\nof a UAV in both spatial and temporal domains. Determining optimal routes for\nthe UAV and RV, and selecting optimized locations for refueling to aid in\nminimizing coverage time is a challenging problem due to different vehicle\nspeeds, coupling between refueling location placement, and the coverage area at\neach location. We develop a two-stage strategy for coupled route planning for\nUAV and RV to perform a coverage mission. The first stage computes a minimal\nset of refueling sites that permit a feasible UAV route. In the second stage,\nmultiple Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulations are developed to\nplan optimal routes for the UAV and the refueling vehicle taking into account\nthe feasible set of refueling sites generated in stage one. The performance of\ndifferent formulations is compared empirically. In addition, computationally\nefficient heuristics are developed to solve the routing problem. Extensive\nsimulations are conducted to corroborate the effectiveness of proposed\napproaches.\n