Dynamic Decentralized 3D Urban Coverage and Patrol with UAVs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable, decentralized UAV patrol strategy for rapid, complete 3D urban coverage during disasters, using a modular framework with cooperative, randomized movement along closed paths.

Contribution

It presents a novel minimal, scalable patrol method enabling UAV swarms to cooperatively and periodically cover complex 3D urban areas during emergencies.

Findings

Emergent behavior achieves complete coverage.

Strategy is scalable and robust.

Effective in simulated urban disaster scenarios.

Abstract

In the event of natural or man-made disasters in an urban environment, such as fires, floods, and earthquakes, a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can rapidly sweep and provide coverage to monitor the area of interest and locate survivors. We propose a modular framework and patrol strategy that enables a swarm of UAVs to perform cooperative and periodic coverage in such scenarios. Our approach first discretizes the area of interest into viewpoints connected via closed paths. UAVs are assigned to teams via task allocation to cooperatively patrol these closed paths. We propose a minimal, scalable, and robust patrol strategy where UAVs within a team move in a random direction along their assigned closed path and "bounce" off each other when they meet. Our simulation results show that such a minimal strategy can exhibit an emergent behaviour that provides periodic and complete coverage in a 3D urban environment.