Shipborne Uav-Enabled Efficient Path Planning Model for Man Overboard Search and Rescue
Chentao Xu, Xinyang Zhang, Kunlin Hu, Lucai Wang · 2025
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) plays an important role in maritime emergency search and rescue due to its low cost, high mobility and wide field of view. In order to solve the problems of low efficiency and low success rate of traditional search and rescue (SAR) missions for people falling overboard, a research method of search and rescue path planning based on shipborne UAV was proposed. Firstly, based on the initial probability distribution of distress location, the drift model of people falling overboard is established, and the random particle simulation method is used to predict the search area for people falling overboard and the search area is optimized; fully considering the factors that affect the performance of the UAV, construct coverage path planning model for a UAV, obtain the optimal parameter solution, and optimize the coverage path planning of the search area. Partial waters of the South China Sea are selected for experimental analysis. The results show that the optimized search area is reduced by 64 % and the search time is significantly reduced. The proposed model contributes to the overall search efficiency and the success rate of search and rescue of people overboard, and provides support for the establishment of an efficient and perfect maritime search and rescue system.