Dubins Path Planning of Multiple Unmanned Airborne Vehicles for Communication Relay

Abstract

This article investigates the path planning strategy of a swarm of unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs) with the aim of guaranteeing the communication relay between a ground control station and a friendly fleet. A decision-making algorithm mainly relies on waypoint generations and path planning based on Dubins theory and deals with dynamic and strategic constraints such as maximum speed, minimum curvature radius, and no fly zones arising from the mission operative scenario. The example simulations concerning a baseline scenario with a swarm of three UAVs are done to verify the feasibility of the proposed path planning algorithm.

UAV flight coordination for communication networks: genetic algorithms versus game theory

“…Research efforts exist that address the planning of efficient paths rather than area coverage (Kim et al 2011;Tsourdos et al 2011;Shiyou et al 2012;Bortoff 2000;Leonard et al 2012;Shin et al 2012). While primarily addressing the problem of timeliness in providing coverage, it became apparent that the multi-UAV coordination process requires some communication between the participating UAVs.…”

Trajectory planning of unmanned aerial vehicle based on the improved biogeography-based optimization algorithm

“…For these reasons, UAV trajectory planning has become a research hotspot. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Samaniego et al 7 regarded the space of UAV flight as a discrete adaptive grid with minimum step size, and used cost response algorithm and recursive calculation to conduct trajectory planning, which reduced the response time, Lupascu et al 8 extended the square in two dimensions to the cube in three dimensions for trajectory planning, and demonstrated the feasibility of the algorithm. Contreras-Cruz et al 9 trajectory planning in a static environment using artificial bee colony algorithm was proposed.…”

Coordinated trajectory planning for efficient communication relay using multiple UAVs

“…Cerasoli [8] assessed the practical effectiveness of a UAV communication relay in an urban area using the ray tracing method. Kim et al [9] proposed a path planning strategy of multiple UAV for communication relay between ground control station and a friendly fleet. This work considered communication range and other constraints such as maximum curvature and no fly zone; it was devoted to designing off-line trajectories of UAVs with known motion planning of a friendly fleet.…”