Persistent surveillance for unmanned aerial vehicles subject to charging and temporal logic constraints

• Published in: Autonomous robots Vol. 40; no. 8; pp. 1363 - 1378
• Main Authors: Leahy, Kevin, Zhou, Dingjiang, Vasile, Cristian-Ioan, Oikonomopoulos, Konstantinos, Schwager, Mac, Belta, Calin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Automation; Charging; Collision avoidance; Computer Imaging; Control; Engineering; Fields (mathematics); Mechatronics; Missions; Pattern Recognition and Graphics; Robotics; Robotics and Automation; Rotary wing aircraft; Surveillance; Temporal logic; Traffic surveillance; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Vehicles; Vision; Multi-robot systems; Formal methods; Persistent monitoring; Aerial robotics
• ISSN: 0929-5593; 1573-7527
• DOI: 10.1007/s10514-015-9519-z

In this work, we present a novel method for automating persistent surveillance missions involving multiple vehicles. Automata-based techniques are used to generate collision-free motion plans for a team of vehicles to satisfy a temporal logic specification. Vector fields are created for use with a differential flatness-based controller, allowing vehicle flight and deployment to be fully automated according to the motion plans. The use of charging platforms with the vehicles allows for truly persistent missions. Experiments were performed with two quadrotors for two different missions over 50 runs each to validate the theoretical results.