Multi-constrained cooperative path planning of multiple drones for persistent surveillance in urban environments

Abstract

AbstractDifferent from the usual surveillance task in which the goal is to achieve complete coverage of the specified area, the cooperative path planning problem of drones for persistent surveillance task is studied in this paper considering multiple constraints of the covered area. The goal is to maximize the combinational coverage area of drones while giving preference to the area that hasn’t been visited beyond a certain time interval. The influence of shooting resolution and blocking of buildings are considered, and the state information of each grid is defined to record the visit information of the ground area. Considering the characteristic of the established model, the multi-constrained cooperative path planning (MCCPP) algorithm is developed. The grids which have not been visited for a long time are received special attentions, and the drone is led to reducing the flight height to cover the gird which has a special requirement on the shooting resolution. The cooperation mechanism among drones is also set to ensure that all the drones can determine the next path point synchronously. An emergency path planning algorithm with the continuous checking strategy is designed for a drone to fly to the specified area and finish a complete coverage of it.