Coverage Optimization using Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Connectivity Constraint

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has evolved and increased recently both in civilian and military operations. In this research, we investigate the coverage of a given area using an autonomous UAV network and maintaining connectivity during the patrol; UAVs are equipped with an image and radio sensors, whose goal is to monitor a given area. Covering means that every position in the area should be covered at least by one UAV and connectivity consists to maintain the communication between UAVs and the base station during the patrol for better collaboration. Due to the communication range limit of UAVs, connectivity may then be needed to find inter-UAVs routing paths to satisfy the communication between UAVs and the base station.The problem is formulated and tested successfully, using the Solver CPLEX, as an integer linear programming model to solve it optimally. Computational experiments are generated on different grid sizes and multiple sensor ranges.