Learning for Path Planning and Coverage Mapping in UAV-Assisted Emergency Communications

We consider a setting in which a rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) acts as an aerial base station to provide emergency communication service to an area of unknown and inhomogeneous user distribution. The UAV has communication with a ground node deployed to the area, which acts as a charging station. We are interested in two important problems in this setting, namely the path planning and coverage mapping problems. In the path planning problem, the UAV must plan its path starting and ending at the charging station, visiting a series of waypoints over which it hovers to provide coverage to surrounding users. On the other hand, the coverage mapping problem focuses on learning the distribution of user coverage over the area. We highlight the importance of learning this distribution to collect valuable data in an emergency situation. We then propose an online algorithm that simultaneously solves the path planning and coverage mapping problems using a deep learning model. We highlight the interplay and conflicting goals of path planning and coverage mapping, but show through Monte Carlo simulation that, under the correct parameters, the algorithm is able to achieve success on both problems.