Trajectory Design and Coverage Control for Solar-Powered UAVs

Abstract

This paper explores the benefits and challenges of using solar energy to power unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance purposes. The task of persistent surveillance requires constant supply of input energy and is of particular significance in a number of applications such as weather monitoring, wildfire control, pollution or contamination detection, target search and other long endurance missions. Here, we consider the task of monitoring a geographical area for events of varying priorities and design optimal trajectories for sufficient continuous coverage of the region and eliminate the need to devise a refueling policy. Trajectories are designed based on how the UAVs collect the solar energy to carry out the mission under a variety of dynamic and endurance constraints. An algorithm is proposed to handle the energy collection and the coverage of the target area. Different goals are set and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the ability of the UAVs to meet these goals.