UAV Route Planning Model and Algorithm Considering Time Windows and Multi-Surveillance for Traffic Surveillance

Abstract

This paper introduced the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to conduct road traffic surveillance, and proposed a multi-objective mathematical model for UAV route planning. This model considered the UAV multi-surveillance for one target and used the number of UAVs available, the maximum UAV cruise distance and the time windows of targets as constraints, aiming to minimize the number of UAVs used and the total generalized UAV cruise distance. Then, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm was proposed. Next, a battery-powered UAV flight experiment was conducted. In addition, a case study with four scenarios was implemented to analyze the impact of UAV multi-surveillance for one target on route planning. The case results showed that compared with the optimal initial solutions, two optimization objectives were improved significantly. Furthermore, with increasing UAV surveillance times for one target, the two objective values increased. Finally, some conclusions and discussions of using UAVs for traffic surveillance were provided.