The coverage problem in UAV network: A survey

UAV has been a popular piece of equipment both in military and civilian applications. Groups of UAVs can form an UAV network and accomplish complicated missions such as rescue, searching, patrolling and mapping. One of the most active areas of research in UAV networks is that of area coverage problem which is usually defined as a problem of how well the UAV networks are able to monitor the given space, and how well the UAVs inside a network are able to cooperate with each other. Area coverage problem in cooperative UAV networks is the very base of many applications. In this paper, we take a representative survey of the current work that has been done about this problem via discussion of different classifications. This study serves as an overview of area coverage problem, and give some inspiration to related researchers.