A Staged Path Planner for an Unmanned Air System Performing Surveillance

摘要

In search and rescue, target tracking, and other missions, Unmanned Air Systems (UASs) assist in accomplishing mission goals while minimizing risk to human personnel. By automating the planning process we can reduce the workload for UAS operators. This paper presents a novel staged path planner that autonomously computes the flight path of the UAS, the path of the sensor optical axis along the terrain, and the sensor zoom level by maximizing the probability of detection over a finite time horizon. These algorithms are used to precompute UAS and sensor paths for a surveillance mission over a specified region. Simulated and actual flight test results are included.