Multi-Target Assignment and Path Planning for Groups of UAVs

Abstract

Uninhabited autonomous vehicles (UAVs) have many useful military applications, including reconnaissance, search-and-destroy, and search-and-rescue missions in hazardous environments such as battlefields or disaster areas. Recently, there has been considerable interest in the possibility of using large teams (swarms) of UAVs functioning cooperatively to accomplish a large number of tasks (e.g., finding and attacking targets). However, this requires the assignment of multiple spatially distributed tasks to each UAV along with a feasible path that minimizes effort and avoids threats.