Asymptotically optimal path planning for ground surveillance by a team of UAVs

Abstract

This letter addresses a path planning problem for a team of mobile robots, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, patrolling a ground region for surveillance. An effective navigation algorithm is developed and proved to be asymptotically optimal in the sense that the ratio of the revisit period of the algorithm and the minimum possible revisit period converges to one as the area of the region tends to infinity. Illustrative examples and comparisons with an existing method show the efficiency of the developed approach.