Multi-UAV Persistent Surveillance With Communication Constraints and Health Management

This paper presents an extended formulation of the persistent surveillance problem first proposed in [1]. The extended formulation incorporates new communication constraints and a stochastic sensor failure model, in addition to modeling stochastic fuel flow dynamics and the basic constraints of providing surveillance coverage using a team of unmanned vehicles. Using a parallel, distributed implementation of an approximate dynamic programming algorithm, an approximate policy for the persistent surveillance problem can be quickly computed. Simulation analysis of this policy indicates that it correctly coordinates the actions of the team of UAVs to simultaneously provide reliable surveillance coverage and communications over the course of the mission, and appropriately retasks UAVs to maintain these services in the event of sensor failures.