Calculation Of The Optimum Number Of Unmanned Air Vehicles Required For Surveillance Missions

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine minimum quantity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that should be used in an area where an aerial reconnaissance/observation activity will be carried out. In order to make this kind of calculation, firstly, the energy consumption of a UAV while flying with a constant speed was examined and then % energy level consumed by the UAV while passing each meter was obtained approximately. In this study, by considering the length of the trajectory which a UAV will navigate, required % energy level of a UAV to complete a single tour is calculated. If it is determined that one UAV can not complete its assigned trajectory, the number of UAVs are increased until each UAV complete its trajectory. In this study, the vehicle routing problem approach was used to calculate the UAV trajectories. Genetic algorithm method that is one of the metaheuristic optimization methods, was used obtain the solution of the vehicle routing problem (VRP). The developed algorithm has been run in Matlab environment. By changing the parameters of crossing rate and the population number in the genetic algorithm (GA) method, the lowest number of UAVs that is enough to carry out aerial observation over a target area and the shortest UAV trajectories were obtained. Results were presented in table form.

Keywords

• unmanned aerial vehicles
• vehicle routing problem
• genetic algorithm

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