Path Planning of a swarm of UAVs with minimal energy consumption
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are evolving as versatile machines in revolutionalising modern transportation systems. Their applications range from quick package delivery, seamless terrain mapping to emergency responsiveness and precision agriculture. However, UAVs carry fixed-capacity batteries, so an extended range of operation is always tricky. Also, UAVs are inefficient as nearly half of the battery power is consumed in supporting its own weight. One of the well-known problems concerning UAV operations is the path planning of a UAV with minimal energy consumption. A Power Consumption Model (PoCM) is used to estimate the endurance of a UAV, like its flying time, range, speed, payload limits, battery capacity, etc. So, an accurate PoCM plays a crucial role in planning the best possible path or trajectory in terms of energy being spent for a given operation.
In this research, we aim to address three aspects concerning the path planning of a quadrotor UAV.
First, we want to derive a Power Consumption Model (PoCM) that can accurately predict the power consumed by a quadrotor in-flight. Second, using the obtained PoCM, we aim to perform path planning given an operation/objective such that the energy consumed in a trip is minimized. Third, we plan to devise an algorithm for path-planning in a multi-agent setup and dynamically changing environment such that a given objective is achieved with minimum power consumed by each agent.
Read more about my work [Here]
Resources