A multi-UAV system for coverage path planning applications with
in-flight re-planning capabilities
Abstract
This paper presents the development and implementation of a multi-UAV
system focused on coverage path planning on multiple separated areas
capable of re-planning the collective mission in case of unexpected
events. For this purpose, we present a distributed-centralized
architecture that uses heuristic and computationally efficient methods
to perform the planning/re-planning and decision-making tasks during the
control of the mission execution. We performed a computational
evaluation of the algorithms, comparing them with other proposals,
together with experiments in simulated and real flights. The results
show that the system can distribute tasks equitably among the aircraft
in an efficient way, even in the middle of the flight, when facing
unexpected events; and show a higher computational efficiency when
compared to multiple proposals in the state of the art.