ON ONE APPROACH TO SOLVING THE TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEM FOR AUTONOMOUS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE PLANNING OF TARGET FLIGHT PATHS

Abstract

Objective. Develop a principle of constructing tools and procedures for optimal routing of targets by an autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicle, which have an acceptable complexity for implementation on an onboard computer. Methods . The rules for optimizing the terrain map with the located targets, creating a penalty matrix that considers the disturbing factors of the unstable air environment in the planning process, and building a reference tree for finding the minimum route for the accepted cost of flying around the targets. Results . A principle is proposed to develop effective procedures for planning minimum cost-effective routes to fly around targets in an unstable air environment. The basis for behavior planning is the optimization of the formal description of a given terrain map, which leads to a significant reduction in the number of alternatives compared in the process of searching for a minimum route to fly around targets. This, in turn, makes it possible to implement planning procedures on the onboard computer system of an autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicle. A statement is proved to justify the existence of a minimum route for the accepted cost of overflying targets in the formal description of the terrain map obtained as a result of converting its original representation based on the developed optimization rules. Conclusion . The considered approach effectively solves various types of issues reduced to the traveling salesman problem, including planning the minimum route of flying around targets by an autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicle in an unstable air environment under uncertainty conditions.