Path Planning for a Solar-Powered UAV Inspecting Mountain Sites for Safety and Rescue

Hailong Huang and Andrey V. Savkin
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Hailong Huang: School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
Andrey V. Savkin: School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: This paper focuses on the application using a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to inspect mountain sites for the purpose of safety and rescue. An inspection path planning problem is formulated, which looks for the path for an UAV to visit a set of sites where people may appear while avoiding collisions with mountains and maintaining positive residual energy. A rapidly exploring random tree (RRT)-based planning method is proposed. This method firstly finds a feasible path that satisfies the residual energy requirement and then shortens the path if there is some abundant residual energy at the end. Computer simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.

Keywords: path planning; rapidly exploring random tree (RRT); unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); solar-powered UAVs; surveillance and monitoring; safety and rescue missions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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