UAV Path Planning for Emergency Management in IoT
Sherin Abdelhamid · 2018
With the low cost, diversity, and flexible mobility of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), they have become promising enablers for many vital applications. In this paper, we investigate the use of UAVs in handling emergency situations in IoT environments. We discuss how UAVs can be used as an alternate connectivity infrastructure, replacing the ground infrastructure damaged/suspended as a result of the emergency situation. We consider cases where a UAV can be dispatched to visit critical points of interest for data collection, actuation, and/or hazard map generation. We propose three schemes that target planning the UAV path efficiently in a way that maximizes the number of visited points while meeting a practical planning objective. The schemes also take into consideration the maximum travel capacity allowed for the UAV based on its on-board capabilities. The schemes are implemented and thoroughly compared. The evaluation results show that each scheme efficiently succeeds in achieving its planning objective.