Designing an energy efficient UAV tracking algorithm

In this paper, we present a solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) energy saving problem while ensuring a continuous tracking of a mobile target. Our tracking algorithm is based on three zones, and according to the target placement in those zones, the UAV will do a specific type of actions. We proposed an additional zone called the authorized zone. In this zone, the UAV keeps a fixed velocity and a fixed altitude, and this contributes to the limitation of the energy consumption while also maintaining a minimal altitude. We also proposed an adapted criterion which considers the velocity, altitude and acceleration changes to evaluate the energy consumption. The idea here is to limit the number of the UAV adjustments to reduce the energy consumption and still keeping the target in its camera field of view.