Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
6.1
4.8
Journals
Drones
Special Issues
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning: Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
share announcement

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning: Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X). This special issue belongs to the section "Drone Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2023) | Viewed by 5060

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anwar Haque

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science, MC415, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada
Interests: communication network resource and performance management; IoT; cyber security; UAV; smart city applications
Dr. Ahmed Refaey Hussein

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
Interests: autonomous systems; communication networks; computing systems; cyber-physical computing systems; cybersecurity
Prof. Dr. Amr Mohamed

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713 Doha, Qatar
Interests: AI for IoT systems; wireless networking; edge computing for IoT applications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit your original and exciting research work to the MDPI Drones Special Issue on “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning: Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions.”

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, will continue to change how we conduct business across many sectors. Drones have revolutionized the automation of tasks and their applications have already become widespread across various industries, including transportation, agriculture, civil development and maintenance, defense, mining, entertainment, and many more. In these UAV applications, safe path planning capabilities are essential for their autonomous control systems. Autonomous UAVs must be able to compute feasible, computationally efficient, and collision-free safe paths in real time. Developing cost-effective and robust path planning solutions for UAVs can be challenging due to various technical, communication, infrastructure, and environmental factors. Current UAV path planning research continues to explore and propose novel, cost-effective, and practical solutions by addressing some of these limitations and challenges. This Special Issue aims to shed light on today’s state-of-the-art path planning solutions, critical challenges, research gaps, and future directions toward developing practical commercial UAV applications.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

  • UAV path planning and route optimization
  • Energy-efficient algorithms for UAV path planning
  • Collaborative path planning and task scheduling for UAV swarm
  • UAV path planning in long-distance flights
  • Challenges in dynamic obstacle avoidance in UAV flight
  • Localization challenges in UAV flight
  • UAV path planning in limited wireless environments
  • UAV flight in “5G and beyond” environment
  • Path planning for small-scale UAVs
  • Onboard UAV routing optimization challenges
  • Autonomous UAV field trial experience

Dr. Anwar Haque
Dr. Ahmed Refaey Hussein
Prof. Dr. Amr Mohamed
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) 
  • autonomous drones 
  • UAV path planning 
  • constrained path optimization 
  • flight path obstacle avoidance 
  • UAV swarm 
  • UAV task scheduling 
  • UAV onboard computing 
  • GPS navigation 
  • 5G and beyond

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

25 pages, 3115 KiB  
Article
Constraint Programming Approach to Coverage-Path Planning for Autonomous Multi-UAV Infrastructure Inspection
by Lea Matlekovic and Peter Schneider-Kamp
Drones 2023, 7(9), 563; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7090563 - 1 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1344
Abstract
This article presents a constraint modeling approach to global coverage-path planning for linear-infrastructure inspection using multiple autonomous UAVs. The problem is mathematically formulated as a variant of the Min–Max K-Chinese Postman Problem (MM K-CPP) with multi-weight edges. A high-level constraint programming language is [...] Read more.
This article presents a constraint modeling approach to global coverage-path planning for linear-infrastructure inspection using multiple autonomous UAVs. The problem is mathematically formulated as a variant of the Min–Max K-Chinese Postman Problem (MM K-CPP) with multi-weight edges. A high-level constraint programming language is used to model the problem, which enables model execution with different third-party solvers. The optimal solutions are obtained in a reasonable time for most of the tested instances and different numbers of vehicles involved in the inspection. For some graphs with multi-weight edges, a time limit is applied, as the problem is NP-hard and the computation time increases exponentially. Despite that, the final total inspection cost proved to be lower when compared with the solution obtained for the unrestricted MM K-CPP with single-weight edges. This model can be applied to plan coverage paths for linear-infrastructure inspection, resulting in a minimal total inspection time for relatively simple graphs that resemble real transmission networks. For more extensive graphs, it is possible to obtain valid solutions in a reasonable time, but optimality cannot be guaranteed. For future improvements, further optimization could be considered, or different models could be developed, possibly involving artificial neural networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning: Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

29 pages, 1775 KiB  
Review
Research on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning
by Junhai Luo, Yuxin Tian and Zhiyan Wang
Drones 2024, 8(2), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones8020051 - 4 Feb 2024
Viewed by 2751
Abstract
As the technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) advances, these vehicles are increasingly being used in various industries. However, the navigation of UAVs often faces restrictions and obstacles, necessitating the implementation of path-planning algorithms to ensure safe and efficient flight. This paper presents [...] Read more.
As the technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) advances, these vehicles are increasingly being used in various industries. However, the navigation of UAVs often faces restrictions and obstacles, necessitating the implementation of path-planning algorithms to ensure safe and efficient flight. This paper presents innovative path-planning algorithms designed explicitly for UAVs and categorizes them based on algorithmic and functional levels. Moreover, it comprehensively discusses the advantages, disadvantages, application challenges, and notable outcomes of each path-planning algorithm, aiming to examine their performance thoroughly. Additionally, this paper provides insights into future research directions for UAVs, intending to assist researchers in future explorations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning: Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop