Solving Complex Multi-UAV Mission Planning Problems using Multi-objective Genetic Algorithms

Due to recent booming of UAVs technologies, these are being used in many fields involving complex tasks. Some of them involve a high risk to the vehicle driver, such as fire monitoring and rescue tasks, which make UAVs excellent for avoiding human risks. Mission Planning for UAVs is the process of planning the locations and actions (loading/dropping a load, taking videos/pictures, acquiring information) for the vehicles, typically over a time period. These vehicles are controlled from Ground Control Stations (GCSs) where human operators use rudimentary systems. This paper presents a new Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm for solving complex Mission Planning Problems (MPP) involving a team of UAVs and a set of GCSs. A hybrid fitness function has been designed using a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) to check if solutions are valid and Pareto-based measures to look for optimal solutions. The algorithm has been tested on several datasets optimizing different variables of the mission, such as the makespan, the fuel consumption, distance, etc. Experimental results show that the new algorithm is able to obtain good solutions, however as the problem becomes more complex, the optimal solutions also become harder to find.Comment: This is a preprint version of the article submitted and published in Soft Computin

Constrained multi-objective optimization for multi-UAV planning

Over the last decade, developments in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has greatly increased, and they are being used in many fields including surveillance, crisis management or automated mission planning. This last field implies the search of plans for missions with multiple tasks, UAVs and ground control stations; and the optimization of several objectives, including makespan, fuel consumption or cost, among others. In this work, this problem has been solved using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm combined with a constraint satisfaction problem model, which is used in the fitness function of the algorithm. The algorithm has been tested on several missions of increasing complexity, and the computational complexity of the different element considered in the missions has been studied.Comment: Preprint of the article submitted and published in Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computin

The Dynamic Multi-objective Multi-vehicle Covering Tour Problem

This work introduces a new routing problem called the Dynamic Multi-Objective Multi-vehicle Covering Tour Problem (DMOMCTP). The DMOMCTPs is a combinatorial optimization problem that represents the problem of routing multiple vehicles to survey an area in which unpredictable target nodes may appear during execution. The formulation includes multiple objectives that include minimizing the cost of the combined tour cost, minimizing the longest tour cost, minimizing the distance to nodes to be covered and maximizing the distance to hazardous nodes. This study adapts several existing algorithms to the problem with several operator and solution encoding variations. The efficacy of this set of solvers is measured against six problem instances created from existing Traveling Salesman Problem instances which represent several real countries. The results indicate that repair operators, variable length solution encodings and variable-length operators obtain a better approximation of the true Pareto front

Evolutionary Computation for Overlapping Community Detection in Social and Graph-based Information

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Departamento de Ingeniería Informática. Fecha de lectura : 26-06-2017Esta tesis tiene embargado el acceso al texto completo hasta el 26-12-201

Fuelling the zero-emissions road freight of the future: routing of mobile fuellers

The future of zero-emissions road freight is closely tied to the sufficient availability of new and clean fuel options such as electricity and Hydrogen. In goods distribution using Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECVs) and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (HFCVs) a major challenge in the transition period would pertain to their limited autonomy and scarce and unevenly distributed refuelling stations. One viable solution to facilitate and speed up the adoption of ECVs/HFCVs by logistics, however, is to get the fuel to the point where it is needed (instead of diverting the route of delivery vehicles to refuelling stations) using "Mobile Fuellers (MFs)". These are mobile battery swapping/recharging vans or mobile Hydrogen fuellers that can travel to a running ECV/HFCV to provide the fuel they require to complete their delivery routes at a rendezvous time and space. In this presentation, new vehicle routing models will be presented for a third party company that provides MF services. In the proposed problem variant, the MF provider company receives routing plans of multiple customer companies and has to design routes for a fleet of capacitated MFs that have to synchronise their routes with the running vehicles to deliver the required amount of fuel on-the-fly. This presentation will discuss and compare several mathematical models based on different business models and collaborative logistics scenarios

Nostratic Dictionary

A revised edition can be found at http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244080.Aharon Dolgopolsky is the leading authority on the Nostratic macrofamily. His 'Nostratic Dictionary' presented here is, of course, something very much more than a dictionary. It is the most thorough and extensive demonstration and documentation so far of what may be termed the Nostratic hypothesis: that several of the world's best- known language families are related in their origin, their grammar and their lexicon, and that they belong together in a larger unit, of earlier origin, the Nostratic macrofamily. It should at once be noted that several elements of this enterprise are controversial. For while the Nostratic hypothesis has many supporters, it has been criticized on rather fundamental grounds by a number of distinguished linguists. The matter was reviewed some years ago in a symposium held at the McDonald Institute, and positions remain very much polarized. It was a result of that meeting that the decision was taken to invite Aharon Dolgopolsky to publish his Dictionary - a much more substantial treatise than any work hitherto undertaken on the subject - at the McDonald Institute. For it became clear that the diversities of view expressed at that symposium were not likely to be resolved by further polemical exchanges. Instead, a substantial body of data was required, whose examination and evaluation could subsequently lead to more mature judgments. Those data are presented here, and that more mature evaluation can now proceed.McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio