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We consider the mission and flight planning problem for an inhomogeneous fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Therein, the mission planning problem of assigning targets to a fleet of UAVs and the flight planning problem of finding optimal flight trajectories between a given set of waypoints are combined into one model and solved simultaneously. Thus, trajectories of an inhomogeneous fleet of UAVs have to be specified such that the sum of waypoint-related scores is maximized, considering technical and environmental constraints. Several aspects of an existing basic model are expanded to achieve a more detailed solution. A two-level time grid approach is presented to smooth the computed trajectories. The three-dimensional mission area can contain convex-shaped restricted airspaces and convex subareas where wind affects the flight trajectories. Furthermore, the flight dynamics are related to the mass change, due to fuel consumption, and the operating range of every UAV is altitude-dependent. A class of benchmark instances for collision avoidance is adapted and expanded to fit our model and we prove an upper bound on its objective value. Finally, the presented features and results are tested and discussed on several test instances using GUROBI as a state-of-the-art numerical solver.
We formulate the mission planning problem for a meet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem (MINLP). The problem asks for a selection of targets from a list to the UAVs, and trajectories that visit the chosen targets. To be feasible, a trajectory must pass each target at a desired maximal distance and within a certain time window, obstacles or regions of high risk must be avoided, and the fuel limitations must be obeyed. An optimal trajectory maximizes the sum of values of all targets that can be visited, and as a secondary goal, conducts the mission in the shortest possible time. In order to obtain numerical solutions to this model, we approximate the MINLP by a mixed-integer linear program (MILP), and apply a state-of-the-art solver (GUROBI) to the latter on a set of test instances.