Mitigating Risk in UAV Aid Delivery Missions: A Safe Path Prioritization Approach

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) play a crucial role in delivering life-saving supplies, such as medication and food, to remote or hazardous locations, including areas affected by conflicts and natural disasters. This research focuses on the complex challenges of planning UAV routes in high-risk environments, where real-time adjustments to flight strategies are often necessary to ensure mission success and the safety of the UAVs. As a case study, we consider scenarios involving UAVs delivering essential aid to vulnerable groups in unsafe areas, which presents unique logistical challenges. To address these issues, we propose a novel model based on Safe Path Prioritization, which emphasizes the selection of previously flown and confirmed safe paths over sending UAVs into unknown, potentially dangerous areas. Our innovative approach combines two advanced tools for efficient route planning: Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees (RRT) for effective pathfinding and a genetic algorithm-based mechanism for optimizing routes. Additionally, the model utilizes a dynamic risk map to enhance decision-making, ensuring that UAVs aim to visit the closest beneficiary groups while accounting for critical constraints such as battery consumption. The proposed method was rigorously validated through extensive computer simulations, which varied configurations, including the number of beneficiary groups, UAVs, and unsafe zones. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in operational effectiveness: specifically, there was a 28% increase in the number of beneficiary groups visited and a remarkable 71% increase in successful deliveries, even under less favorable conditions that necessitated longer flight paths. Conversely, in scenarios deemed less challenging, UAVs tended to reduce visits to beneficiary groups, prioritizing safer but lengthier routes. Overall, our findings illustrate that Safe Path Prioritization is a reliable and effective method for completing missions where both UAV preservation and timely aid delivery to beneficiary groups are of paramount importance.