Heuristic path planning of unmanned aerial vehicle formations

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to propose a novel method to plan paths of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) formations. This is to make use of the aerodynamic advantage of formation flight to reduce energy consumption of UAVs.Design/methodology/approachThe method proposed in this research make use of the fact that, under certain conditions, the regions where if a UAV rendezvous or separates with another UAV would save energy by formation flying can be analytically calculated. The intersections of these regions are used to decide which UAV are to fly in the same formation. This combination of which UAV are to fly together and what order they join/part from the formation is called the topology of the problem.FindingsThe proposed method was proved to be effective in identifying efficient topologies, with the majority of the topologies selected falling below 5 percent error rate in terms of energy.Originality/valueThe originality of this research lies in the fact that the proposed method is completely visualised – all the necessary information to organise formations is visualised in the envelopes. Still, the proposed method was proved to be effective in selecting efficient topologies.