Autonomous Navigation UAVs for Enhancing Information Freshness for Reconnaissance

Abstract

The demand for autonomous navigation UAVs in reconnaissance is steadily increasing. One crucial aspect of these missions is the freshness of reconnaissance information, which serves as a vital indicator of mission effectiveness. However, there is a lack of targeted investigation in the research on autonomous single/multi-UAV missions and joint path planning. Furthermore, the use of visual–inertial odometry (VIO) in rotary-wing UAVs can lead to significant positional drift during flight, which may result in the loss of the UAV and mission failure. This paper investigates joint planning problems in single/multi-UAV reconnaissance missions under both GPS-available and GPS-unavailable scenarios and proposes an integrated data collection and beacon-assisted localization approach. Finally, the numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in enhancing the freshness of reconnaissance information.