Drone Base Station Trajectory Management for Optimal Scheduling in LTE-Based Sparse Delay-Sensitive M2M Networks

Providing connectivity in areas out of reach of the cellular infrastructure is a very active area of research. This connectivity is particularly needed in case of the deployment of machine type communication devices (MTCDs) for critical purposes such as homeland security. In such applications, MTCDs are deployed in areas that are hard to reach using regular communications infrastructure while the collected data is timely critical. Drone-supported communications constitute a new trend in complementing the reach of the terrestrial communication infrastructure. In this study, drones are used as base stations to provide real-time communication services to gather critical data out of a group of MTCDs that are sparsely deployed in a marine environment. Studying different communication technologies as LTE, WiFi, LPWAN and Free-Space Optical communication (FSOC) incorporated with the drone communications was important in the first phase of this research to identify the best candidate for addressing this need. We have determined the cellular technology, and particularly LTE, to be the most suitable candidate to support such applications. In this case, an LTE base station would be mounted on the drone which will help communicate with the different MTCDs to transmit their data to the network backhaul. We then formulate the problem model mathematically and devise the trajectory planning and scheduling algorithm that decides the drone path and the resulting scheduling. Based on this formulation, we decided to compare between an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based technique that optimizes the drone movement among the sparsely-deployed MTCDs and a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based solution that achieves the same purpose. This optimization is based on minimizing the energy cost of the drone movement while ensuring the data transmission deadline missing is minimized. We present the results of several simulation experiments that validate the different performance aspects of the technique

A Comprehensive Overview of Classical and Modern Route Planning Algorithms for Self-Driving Mobile Robots

Mobile robots are increasingly being applied in a variety of sectors, including agricultural, firefighting, and search and rescue operations. Robotics and autonomous technology research and development have played a major role in making this possible. Before a robot can reliably and effectively navigate a space without human aid, there are still several challenges to be addressed. When planning a path to its destination, the robot should be able to gather information from its surroundings and take the appropriate actions to avoid colliding with obstacles along the way. The following review analyses and compares 200 articles from two databases, Scopus and IEEE Xplore, and selects 60 articles as references from those articles. This evaluation focuses mostly on the accuracy of the different path-planning algorithms. Common collision-free path planning methodologies are examined in this paper, including classical or traditional and modern intelligence techniques, as well as both global and local approaches, in static and dynamic environments. Classical or traditional methods, such as Roadmaps (Visibility Graph and Voronoi Diagram), Potential Fields, and Cell Decomposition, and modern methodologies such as heuristic-based (Dijkstra Method, A* Algorithms, and D* Algorithms), metaheuristics algorithms (such as PSO, Bat Algorithm, ACO, and Genetic Algorithm), and neural systems such as fuzzy neural networks or fuzzy logic (FL) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are described in this report. In this study, we outline the ideas, benefits, and downsides of modeling and path-searching technologies for a mobile robot

Smooth Coverage Path Planning for UAVs with Model Predictive Control Trajectory Tracking

Within the Industry 4.0 ecosystem, Inspection Robotics is one fundamental technology to speed up monitoring processes and obtain good accuracy and performance of the inspections while avoiding possible safety issues for human personnel. This manuscript investigates the robotics inspection of areas and surfaces employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The contribution starts by addressing the problem of coverage path planning and proposes a smoothing approach intended to reduce both flight time and memory consumption to store the target navigation path. Evaluation tests are conducted on a quadrotor equipped with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) policy and a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm to localize the UAV in the environment

3D Real-Time Energy Efficient Path Planning for a Fleet of Fixed-Wing UAVs

UAV path planning requires finding an optimal (or sub-optimal) collision free path in a cluttered environment, while taking into account geometric, physical and temporal constraints, eventually allowing UAVs to perform their tasks despite several uncertainty sources. This paper reviews the current state-of-the-art in path planning, and subsequently introduces a novel node-based algorithm based on the called EEA*. EEA* is based on the A* Search algorithm and aims at mitigating some of its key limitations. The proposed EEA* deals with 3D environments, it provides robustness quickly converging to the solution, it is energy efficient and it is realtime implementable and executable. Along with the proposed EEA*, a local path planner is developed to cope with unknown dynamic threats in the environment. Applicability and effectiveness is first demonstrated via simulated experiments using a fixed-wing UAV that operates in different mountain-like 3D environments in the presence of several unknown dynamic obstacles. Then, the algorithm is applied in a multi-agent setting with three UAVs that are commanded to follow their respective paths in a safe way. The energy efficiency of the EEA* algorithm has also been tested and compared with the conventional A* algorithm

An Energy Efficient Data Collection Using Multiple UAVs in Wireless Sensor Network: A Survey Study

   اليوم، مع التقدم العلمي والتكنولوجي في الروبوتات، والذكاء الاصطناعي، والسيطرة والحواسيب، المركبات البرية والجوية والبحرية قد تم الاهتمام بها. كما تم تحسين الطائرات بدون طيار (UAVs) بشكل كبير وهي مفيدة جدا للعديد من التطبيقات الهامة في الأعمال التجارية والبيئة الحضرية والعسكرية. أحد أهم استخدامات الطائرات بدون طيار في شبكات الاستشعار اللاسلكية (WSNs)  التي لديها طاقة منخفضة وقد لا تكون قادرة على الاتصال في مناطق واسعة. في هذه الحالة ، يمكن أن توفر الطائرة بدون طيار وسيلة لجمع بيانات WSN من جهاز واحد ونقلها إلى المستلم المقصود تركز هذه المقالة على مجال البحث في التطبيقات العملية للطائرات بدون طيار كجامع متنقل لشبكات الاستشعار اللاسلكية. أولا التحقيقات حول الطائرات بدون طيار المقترحة تم دراستها ومقارنة نقاط ضعفها مع بعضها البعض. وكذلك التحديات التقنية لتطبيقات الطائرات بدون طيار في شبكة الاستشعار اللاسلكية تم استكشافها.Today, with scientific and technological advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, control and computers, land, air, and sea vehicles, they have been considered. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have also significantly improved and are very useful for many important applications in the business, urban and military environment. One of the important uses of UAVs in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is that devices with low energy and may not be able to communicate in large areas. Nevertheless, a UAV can provide a tool for collecting the data of WSN from one device and transmitting it to another device. This article focuses on the field of research on practical applications of UAVs as mobile collectors for wireless sensor networks. First, the investigations of the proposed UAV were studied and compared their weaknesses with each other. Then, the technical challenges of the applications of UAVs in the wireless sensor network were explored

Towards fully automated inspection of large components with UAVs: offline path planning

Automation mechanisms are increasingly established in the field of visual inspections. UAVs can be used for particularly large components, such as those used in ship production and for critical infrastructures. This paper concentrates on the problem of visual inspection in the field of perspective-dependent route planning. It is shown how the requirements for such a system can be implemented and elaborated. Furthermore we investigate how sensor positions can be calculated offline, based on optical and geometrical requirements and how a trajectory can be planned which contains the found sensor positions for each given area on the component. It is shown how the systems architecture can be designed in order to be able to adapt it to different requirements for the planning of sensor positions and trajectory. The implementation was tested in a simulation environment, evaluated using a benchmark data set and it was shown how above-average results can be achieved on this data set