On Multiple strongUAVstrong Routing with Stochastic Targets Performance.pdfVIP

On Multiple UAV Routing with Stochastic Targets: Performance Bounds and Algorithms J. J. Enright∗ and E. Frazzoli† University of California – Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095 K. Savla‡ and F. Bullo§ University of California – Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 In this paper we consider the following problem. A number of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), modeled as vehicles moving at constant speed along paths of bounded curvature, must visit stochastically-generated targets in a convex, compact region of the plane. Targets are generated according to a spatio-temporal Poisson process, uniformly in the region. It is desired to minimize the expected waiting time between the appear- ance of a target, and the time it is visited. We present partially centralized algorithms for UAV routing, assigning regions of responsibility to each vehicle, and compare their performance with respect to asymptotic performance bounds, in the light and heavy load limits. Simulation results are presented and discussed. I. Introduction One of the prototypical missions for Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles, e.g., in environmental monitoring, security, or military setting, is wide-area surveillance. Low-altitude UAV in such a mission must provide coverage of a certain region and investigate events of interest (“targets”) as they manifest themselves. In particular, we are interested in cases in which close-range information is required on targets detected b