A three-dimensional coverage path planning method for multi-UAV collaboration
Fan Wang, Yang He, Qingxiang Meng · 2023
In this paper, a new multi-UAV coverage path planning method is proposed for the scenario that UAVs need to completely search and cover a large area, which can plan an optimal feasible path that can avoid obstacles for multi-UAVs to cover the 3D space cooperatively. The method firstly decomposes the target space into mutually independent free cells by the cell decomposition algorithm; then each cell is covered individually according to the field of view of the UAV-mounted camera; then the task allocation among UAVs and the order of connecting cells are determined by comparing two classical task allocation algorithms, simulated annealing algorithm and genetic algorithm, with the total length of the path and the equilibrium degree among UAVs as the objective function; finally the task allocation among UAVs and the order of connecting cells are obtained by interpolation. Finally, the three-dimensional coverage path is obtained by interpolation. The experimental results show that the simulated annealing algorithm converges faster and with higher convergence accuracy than the genetic algorithm, and the path obtained by this method has the advantages of not being affected by terrain, multi-UAV collaboration and being able to avoid obstacles.