A novel method for distribution of goals among UAVs for oil field monitoring
Our aim in this paper is to improve the efficiency of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are employed in a group to monitor large territories and search for various objects. The problem is that of distributing a certain set of scan areas between the members of a UAV group so as to minimise the scan time. Our proposed approach allows to solve the problem of distribution of targets (scan areas) between the UAVs through control devices of separate UAVs, combined with communication channels in a computer network, and is applicable for a variety of different classes of tasks in groups of UAVs. The proposed method allows to minimise the possible intersection of UAV trajectories and to reduce the probability of collisions of UAVs. Experimental simulation results confirm the efficiency of the proposed approach and show that it is possible to obtain close to optimal variants of the distribution of scan areas between UAVs group from the viewpoint of minimising the total time and safe movement of UAVs to targets.