Three-Dimensional Trajectory Design for Energy-Efficient UAV-Assisted Data Collection

Abstract

While fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide an effective means to collect data from sensor nodes (SNs), the design of energy-efficient three-dimensional (3D) trajectories has been deterred by the lack of adequate propulsion energy models. This paper develops a new UAV-assisted data collection scheme to save the energy of the UAV and SNs by holistically designing the 3D trajectory and data collection schedule of a fixed-wing UAV. The key aspect is that a new propulsion energy model is established for a fixed-wing UAV flying a 3D trajectory. Another important aspect is that a new approach is developed to save the energy of UAV-based data collection by jointly optimizing the 3D trajectory and the data collection schedule. Difference-of-convex functions and successive convex approximation are employed to tackle the non-convexity pertaining to the new model. Simulations show the validity of the new model and considerable energy saving by optimizing the 3D trajectories for the UAV, as compared to two-dimensional (2D) trajectories.