Energy optimal UAV path planning for full area coverage: A Review
Quan Nguyen, Loulin Huang, Achala Perera · 2025
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly utilised for infrastructure inspections, and search and rescue missions. These missions often are a remote area and requires UAVs to cover extensive areas with limited onboard power supplies, making energy-optimal path planning crucial. This paper reviews the current challenges in UAV path planning and underscores the need of integrating both point-to-point and coverage path planning strategies, specifically for missions that require a UAV to travel from a depot to a region of interest (ROI), then conducting a coverage mission, and returning under stringent energy constraints. Additionally, this paper addresses the significant impact of real-world environmental factors, such as wind on path planning. Our findings highlight the need for a more holistic approach to UAV path planning to optimize both mission effectiveness and energy efficiency.