Complete Coverage and Path Planning for Emergency Response by UAVs in Disaster Areas

Determining paths for a team of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that pass over a disaster area for reconnaissance and communication delivery for ground users is a subject of our research. It is assumed that the location of disaster victims is unknown because there is no contact with them. However, we have some statistical information about population density levels in subsequent regions of the area. Thus, to maximize the number of localized victims in the first minutes and hours of the rescue operation, we use information about these regions in the UAVs' path planning and optimization process. We present a heuristic optimization algorithm working with a new model of the disaster area that takes into account population density. We also show the results of path planning simulations for selected regions in Poland.