Vehicle routing for aerial surveillance with a homogeneous fleet

2021-12-10
Tarakçı, Koray
In this study, we develop models and solution approaches for planning the surveillance mission of a homogeneous fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Predefined areas are to be observed while satisfying a minimum probability of target detection. Areas are assumed to be rectangular and discrete. UAVs with electro-optical sensors take off from a base and fly through predefined routes. The endurance of UAVs is limited by the maximum flight distance. The proposed models minimize the total travel distance of UAVs to meet the mission requirements. Each UAV starts its tour from the base and, after performing its mission over one or more areas, returns to the base. We developed a mathematical model to solve the route planning for UAVs. Since the problem is NP-Hard, we propose two constructive heuristic algorithms. In the proposed solution approach, we initially transform our problem into an m-TSP problem. Heuristic algorithms start with m-TSP solution and improve the solution to reach the best feasible one. An extensive computational study on the problems taken from the literature shows that the proposed heuristics produce efficient solutions in a reasonable time.

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Citation Formats
K. Tarakçı, “Vehicle routing for aerial surveillance with a homogeneous fleet,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.