Multi-UAV Cooperative Online Searching Based on Voronoi Diagrams

Abstract

This paper presents a Voronoi-based online source searching algorithm for a team of cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under an unknown environment. By integrating the environment estimation as well as searching task planning, the multiple UAVs are able to simultaneously localize as many sources as possible in an online and decentralized manner. In particular, to tackle with several applicability issues, we leverage the technique of Voronoi diagram which helps i) avoid potential collisions among multiple UAVs; and ii) keep all UAVs' traveling distance short during the searching process; and iii) reduce the searching solution space. Moreover, we further hence the algorithm by enabling the UAVs' incremental movements and coverage-based searching. The performance of our online searching algorithm is validated both theoretically and numerically.