Safe and Efficient UAV Navigation Near an Airport

Much recent effort has been devoted to employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to implement airport-related tasks. However, a critical issue, collision avoidance, must be fully considered in this scenario. Herein, we study the efficient UAV navigation problem considering the safety issue near an airport. In detail, we first define the safe separation between the UAV and airplanes according to related aviation regulations. Thereafter, an effective tree-based scheme for navigating the UAV has been proposed to cope with the extra uncertainties induced by keeping the safe separation. An analytical derivation of the UAV's flying time is conducted to determine the optimal battery life. Extensive simulation is conducted to verify our proposed navigation scheme and the analytical derivation.