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The explosive computation demands in the Internet of Things (IoT) have triggered the research interests on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted mobile-edge computing (MEC) systems even though there are still many challenges, such as computing delay requirement, multi-UAV cooperation, and resource management. This letter focuses on the computing delay issue in MEC systems assisted by multiple UAVs with the goal of task completion time minimization. In particular, both the partial offloading and binary offloading modes are considered by jointly optimizing time slot size, terminal devices scheduling, computation resource allocation, and UAVs’ trajectories. Particularly, an non-LoS channel model is adopted for UAV-ground communication. To handle the formulated problems, we develop alternating optimization algorithms by invoking the successive convex approximation method, Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions and penalized method. Numerical results show that the completion time is significantly decreased by the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a novel recursive smooth trajectory (RST) generation algorithm for application in robotics and in particular for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). RST builds the trajectory recursively as a smooth polynomial path, thus a closed form trajectory satisfying any arbitrary dynamic limitation that translates into kinematic constraints (e.g., position, velocity, acceleration, etc.). Uncertainties and perturbations in the constraints are also discussed, modeled, and finally included in the calculation of the polynomial trajectory coefficients. Moreover, due to its recursive formulation, RST enables an immediate extension toward the solution of a trajectory optimization problem. In particular, it is shown that the minimum-snap piecewise polynomial trajectory can be interpreted as a special case of RST. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated numerically via two illustrative scenarios. Its application to a UAV structure is also discussed to highlight the advantage of a smooth path over a piecewise one. Finally, the computational complexity and memory requirements are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we investigate an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled wireless powered communication network (WPCN), in which the UAV first employs the radio frequency (RF) signal to power ground users, and then the users communicate with the UAV by using the harvested energy. The sum rate maximization problem in WPCN suffers doubly near-far effect caused by the double signal propagation loss in both the energy harvesting and communication stage. It is generally believed that this effect can be alleviated by integrating UAV into WPCN, thanks to its flexible deployment. However, due to the lack of analytical solution in state-of-art research, it is still unclear how to quantify the advantage that the mobility of UAV brings to migrating the doubly near-far effect. To address this issue, by showing that the optimal UAV trajectory has a multi-location hovering structure, we first derive the closed-form optimal solution of resource allocation, as a function of the UAV hovering location for downlink wireless power transfer (WPT). We then prove that the UAV in our case only needs to hover at a single location for WPT. More importantly, it is explicitly shown that the doubly near far effect can be alleviated into near-far effect. Simulation results validate our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By fully exploiting the mobility of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), UAV-based aerial base stations (BSs) can move closer to ground users to achieve better communication conditions. In this paper, we consider a scenario where an aerial BS is dispatched for satisfying the data request of a maximum number of ground users, weighted according to their data demand, before exhausting its on-board energy resources. The resulting trajectory optimization problem is a mixed integer non-linear problem (MINLP) which is challenging solve. Specifically, there are coupling constraints which cannot be solved directly. We exploit a penalty decomposition method to reformulate the optimization formulation into a new form and use block coordinate descent technique to decompose the problem into sub-problems. Then, successive convex approximation technique is applied to tackle non-convex constraints. Finally, we propose a double-loop iterative algorithm for the UAV trajectory design. In addition, to achieve a better coverage performance, the problem of designing the initial trajectory for the UAV trajectory is considered. In the results section, UAV trajectories with the proposed algorithm are shown. Numerical results show the coverage performance with the proposed schemes compared to the benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter considers a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, where the UAV collects data from Internet of Things Devices (IoTDs) on the ground while also charging them using laser charging technology. Both the linear and nonlinear laser charging models are considered. We aim to maximize the residual energy of the UAV while satisfying the requirements of IoTDs by jointly optimizing the three-dimensional (3D) trajectory of UAV and scheduling for IoTDs. The optimization problem is formulated as a mixed integer non-convex problem which is difficult to solve in general. We apply the successive convex approximation and block coordinate descent algorithm to address this problem successfully. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our algorithm compared with two benchmark methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers secure communications for an underlay cognitive radio network (CRN) in the presence of an external eavesdropper (Eve). The secrecy performance of CRNs is usually limited by the primary receiver's interference power constraint. To overcome this issue, we propose to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as a friendly jammer to interfere Eve in decoding the confidential message from the secondary transmitter. Our goal is to jointly optimize the transmit power and UAV's trajectory in the three-dimensional space to maximize the average achievable secrecy rate of the secondary system. The formulated optimization problem is nonconvex due to the non-convexity of the objective and non-convexity of constraints, which is very challenging to solve. To obtain a suboptimal but efficient solution to the design problem, we first transform it into a more tractable form and then develop an iterative algorithm for its solution by leveraging the inner approximation (IA) framework. Combining tools from IA framework and S-procedure, we further extend the proposed algorithm to a more realistic scenario, where the imperfect location information of ground nodes (including Eve, secondary receiver and primary receiver) is considered, resulting in the average worst-case secrecy rate. Extensive numerical results are provided to demonstrate the merits of the proposed algorithms over existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a fast chance-constrained trajectory generation strategy incorporating convex optimization and convex approximation of chance constraints is designed so as to solve the unmanned vehicle path planning problem. A path-length-optimal unmanned vehicle trajectory optimization model is constructed with the consideration of the pitch angle constraint, the curvature radius constraint, the probabilistic control actuation constraint, and the probabilistic collision avoidance constraint. Subsequently, convexification technique is introduced to convert the nonlinear problem formulation into a convex form. To deal with the probabilistic constraints in the optimization model, convex approximation techniques are introduced such that the probabilistic constraints are replaced by deterministic ones while simultaneously preserving the convexity of the optimization model. Numerical results, obtained from a number of case studies, validate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed approach. A number of comparative studies were also performed. The results confirm that the proposed design is able to produce more optimal flight paths and achieve enhanced computational performance than other chance-constrained optimization approaches investigated in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided secure communication system is conceived and investigated, where the UAV transmits legitimate information to a ground user in the presence of an eavesdropper (Eve). To guarantee the security, the UAV employs a power splitting approach, where its transmit power can be divided into two parts for transmitting confidential messages and artificial noise (AN), respectively. We aim to maximize the average secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the UAV’s trajectory, the transmit power levels and the corresponding power splitting ratios allocated to different time slots during the whole flight time, subject to both the maximum UAV speed constraint, the total mobility energy constraint, the total transmit power constraint, and other related constraints. To efficiently tackle this non-convex optimization problem, we propose an iterative algorithm by blending the benefits of the block coordinate descent (BCD) method, the concave-convex procedure (CCCP) and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Specially, we show that the proposed algorithm exhibits very low computational complexity and each of its updating steps can be formulated in a nearly closed form. Besides, it can be easily extended to the case of three-dimensional (3D) trajectory design. Our simulation results validate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play a significant role in various 5G or Beyond-5G (B5G)-enabled Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. However, the UAV performance in an air-ground cooperative network is significantly affected by its mobility and air-to-ground (A2G) communication and computation behaviors. In this paper, a UAV-oriented computation offloading system is investigated, where the UAV desires to complete its onboard computation demands with the assistance of a ground edge-computing infrastructure, i.e., a road-side unit (RSU). The objective is to maximize the energy efficiency of the UAV. Specifically, a non-convex constrained optimal control problem is formulated to optimize the overall energy efficiency of UAV by jointly considering the coupled effects of UAV's longitudinal mobility, A2G communication, and computation dynamics. To address the coupled complexity and non-convexity of the original problem, a primal decomposition approach is developed to transform the problem into a convex subproblem and a primary problem, and then a closed-form optimal transmission power control is derived by solving the subproblem, which is dependent on mobility information. By embedding the closed-form optimal power control into the primary problem, a gradient projection-based iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain a joint optimal solution for both the longitudinal acceleration control and the power control, the feasibility and convergence of which is also theoretically proven. Extensive simulations have been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of constraint satisfaction and convergence speed, and comparative results also demonstrate that it can outperform other benchmark methods in terms of global energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the exponential growth of data traffic, caching is regarded as a promising solution to combine with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted networks, which can offload cellular traffic and improve the system performance. Moreover, the cache capacity at user side can be leveraged, e.g., through local data storage or device-to-device (D2D) sharing. In this paper, we focus on the performance analysis and trajectory optimization of cache-enabled UAV-assisted networks with underlaid D2D communications. We consider both static and dynamic UAV deployments. For static UAV deployment, we first formulate an optimization problem to design the cache placement in order to maximize the cache hit probability. Then, the successful transfer probability (STP) and sum-rate are analyzed by using stochastic geometry, and their closed-form expressions are derived. For dynamic UAV deployment, the UAV moves over the cell and stops at several path points to serve users. To shorten the time required for the UAV to cover all users, a spiral algorithm is proposed to optimize the UAV trajectory, aiming at minimizing the number of UAV path points. Moreover, since at different locations, the UAV communication will incur different interference on D2D users, we derive the outage probability for the D2D users. Simulation results show the significant performance gain of our proposed probabilistic cache placement over existing strategies. For a given user density, we show that the optimal values for the UAV height which lead to the maximum UAV-STP and sum-rate exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided simultaneous uplink and downlink transmission networks, where one UAV acting as a disseminator is connected to multiple access points (AP), and the other UAV acting as a base station (BS) collects data from numerous sensor nodes (SNs). The goal of this paper is to maximize the system throughput by jointly optimizing the 3D UAV trajectory, communication scheduling, and UAV-AP/SN transmit power. We first consider a special case where the UAV-BS and UAV-AP trajectories are pre-determined. Although the resulting problem is an integer and non-convex optimization problem, a globally optimal solution is obtained by applying the polyblock outer approximation (POA) method based on the problem’s hidden monotonic structure. Subsequently, for the general case considering the 3D UAV trajectory optimization, an efficient iterative algorithm is proposed to alternately optimize the divided sub-problems based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) technique. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed design is able to achieve significant system throughput gain over the benchmarks. In addition, the SCA-based method can achieve nearly the same performance as the POA-based method with much lower computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive data traffic and connections in 5G networks require the use of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to accommodate more users. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can be exploited with NOMA to improve the situation further. In this paper, we propose a UAV-assisted NOMA network, in which the UAV and base station (BS) cooperate with each other to serve ground users simultaneously. The sum rate is maximized by jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory and the NOMA precoding. To solve the optimization, we decompose it into two steps. First, the sum rate of the UAV-served users is maximized via alternate user scheduling and UAV trajectory with its interference to the BS-served users below a threshold. Then, the optimal NOMA precoding vectors are obtained using two schemes with different constraints. The first scheme intends to cancel the interference from the BS to the UAV-served user, while the second one restricts the interference to a given threshold. In both schemes, the non-convex optimization problems are converted into tractable ones. An iterative algorithm is designed. Numerical results are provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for the hybrid NOMA and UAV network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can be utilized as a relay to connect nodes with long distance, which can achieve significant throughput gain owing to its mobility and line-of-sight (LoS) channel with ground nodes. However, such LoS channels make UAV transmission easy to eavesdrop. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to guarantee the security of UAV-relayed wireless networks with caching via jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory and time scheduling. For every two users that have cached the required file for the other, the UAV broadcasts the files together to these two users, and the eavesdropping can be disrupted. For the users without caching, we maximize their minimum average secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the trajectory and scheduling, with the secrecy rate of the caching users satisfied. The corresponding optimization problem is difficult to solve due to its non-convexity, and we propose an iterative algorithm via successive convex optimization to solve it approximately. Furthermore, we also consider a benchmark scheme in which we maximize the minimum average secrecy rate among all users by jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory and time scheduling when no user has the caching ability. Simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the physical layer security of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network, where a UAV base station (UAV-B) transmits confidential information to multiple information receivers (IRs) with the aid of a UAV jammer (UAV-J) in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. We formulate an optimization problem to jointly design the trajectories and transmit power of UAV-B and UAV-J in order to maximize the minimum average secrecy rate over all IRs. The optimization problem is non-convex and the optimization variables are coupled, which leads to the optimization problem being mathematically intractable. As such, we decompose the optimization problem into two subproblems and then solve it by employing an alternating iterative algorithm and the successive convex approximation technique. Our results show that the average secrecy rate performance of the proposed scheme provides about 20% and 150% performance gains over the joint trajectory and transmit power optimization without UAV-J scheme and the transmit power optimization with fixed trajectory scheme at flight period $T=150$  s, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as communication platforms is of great significance in future wireless networks, especially for on-demand deployment in temporary events and emergency situations. Although prior works have shown the performance improvement by exploiting the UAV’s mobility, they mainly focus on delay-tolerant applications. As delay requirements fundamentally limit the UAV’s mobility, it remains unknown whether the UAV is able to provide any performance gain in delay-constrained communication scenarios. Motivated by the above, we study, in this paper, an UAV-enabled orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) network where an UAV is dispatched as the mobile base station (BS) to serve a group of users on the ground. We consider a minimum-rate ratio (MRR) for each user, defined as the minimum instantaneous rate required over the average achievable throughput, to flexibly adjust the percentage of its delay-constrained data traffic. Under a given set of constraints on the users’ MRRs, we aim to maximize the minimum average throughput of all users by jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory and OFDMA resource allocation. First, we show that the max–min throughput in general decreases as the users’ MRRs become larger, which reveals a fundamental throughput-delay tradeoff in UAV-enabled communications. Next, we propose an iterative parameter-assisted block coordinate descent method to optimize the UAV trajectory and OFDMA resource allocation alternately, by applying the successive convex optimization and the Lagrange duality, respectively. Furthermore, an efficient and systematic UAV trajectory initialization scheme is proposed based on the simple circular trajectory. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify our theoretical findings and demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enabled secure communication systems where a mobile UAV wishes to send confidential messages to multiple ground users. To improve the security performance, a cooperative UAV is additionally considered that transmits the jamming signal. In this system, we maximize the minimum secrecy rate among the ground users by jointly optimizing the trajectory and the transmit power of the UAVs as well as the user scheduling. To efficiently solve this nonconvex problem, we adopt block successive upper bound minimization techniques, which address a sequence of approximated convex problems for each block of variables. Numerical results verify that the proposed algorithm outperforms baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are anticipated to be widely deployed in future wireless communications, due to their advantages of high mobility and easy deployment. However, the broadcast nature of air-to-ground line-of-sight wireless channels brings a new challenge to the information security of UAV-ground communication. This paper tackles such a challenge in the physical layer by exploiting the mobility of UAV via its trajectory design. We consider a UAV-ground communication system with multiple potential eavesdroppers on the ground, where the information on the locations of the eavesdroppers is imperfect. We formulate an optimization problem, which maximizes the average worst case secrecy rate of the system by jointly designing the robust trajectory and transmit power of the UAV over a given flight duration. The nonconvexity of the optimization problem and the imperfect location information of the eavesdroppers make the problem difficult to be solved optimally. We propose an iterative suboptimal algorithm to solve this problem efficiently by applying the block coordinate descent method, $\mathcal {S}$ -procedure, and successive convex optimization method. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the average worst case secrecy rate significantly, as compared to two other benchmark algorithms without robust design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In future mobile networks, it is difficult for static base stations (BSs) to support the rapidly increasing data services, especially for cell-edge users. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a promising method that can assist BSs to offload the data traffic, due to its high mobility and flexibility. In this correspondence, we focus on the UAV trajectory at the edges of three adjacent cells to offload traffic for BSs. In the proposed scheme, the sum rate of UAV-served edge users is maximized subject to the rate requirements for all the users, by optimizing the UAV trajectory in each flying cycle. The optimization is a mixed-integer nonconvex problem, which is difficult to solve. Thus, it is transformed into two convex problems, and an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve it by optimizing the UAV trajectory and edge user scheduling alternately. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be an essential tool for low-cost aerial surveillance and mapping applications in remote regions. There is, however, a key limitation, which is the fact that low-cost UAVs have limited fuel capacity and, hence, require periodic refueling to accomplish a mission. Moreover, the usual mechanism of commanding the UAV to return to a stationary base station for refueling can result in the fuel wastage and inefficient mission operation time. Alternatively, one strategy could be the use of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) as a mobile refueling unit, where the UAV will rendezvous with the UGV for refueling. In order to accurately perform this task in the presence of wind disturbances, we need to determine an optimal trajectory in three-dimensional taking UAV and UGV dynamics and kinematics into account. In this paper, we propose an optimal control formulation to generate a tunable UAV trajectory for rendezvous on a moving UGV that also addresses the possibility of the presence of wind disturbances. By a suitable choice of the value of an aggressiveness index that we introduce in our problem setting, we are able to control the UAV rendezvous behavior. Several numerical results are presented to illustrate the reliability and effectiveness of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attitude control of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is investigated. The aim of this paper is to develop a continuous multivariable attitude control law, which drives the attitude tracking errors of quadrotor UAV to zero in finite time. First, a multivariable super-twisting-like algorithm (STLA) is proposed for arbitrary order integrator systems subject to matched disturbances. A discontinuous integral term is incorporated in the control law in order to compensate the disturbances. A rigorous proof of the finite time stability of the close-loop system is derived by utilizing the Lyapunov method and the homogeneous technique. Then, the implementation of the developed method in an indoor quadrotor UAV is performed. The remarkable features of the developed algorithm includes the finite time convergence, the chattering suppression and the nominal performance recovery. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed method is illustrated by numerical simulations and experimental verification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel algorithm identifying optimal flight trajectories for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles compliant with environmental constraints. Such constraints are defined in terms of obstacles, fixed way-points and selected destination points. Optimality is evaluated taking the minimum path length as the specific objective function. The proposed path planning strategy is based on an original trajectory modelling coupled with a Particle Swarm optimizer (PSO). Flight paths starting from a specified point and ending at a selected destination point are divided into a finite number of segments made up of circular arcs and straight lines. In the proposed approach such a geometrical sequence is replaced with a finite sequence of binary-coded basic manoeuvres. This novel formulation allows to easily handle the manoeuvres sequence with a fixed number of integer variables taking advantage of PSO capability in handling discrete variables; moreover the use of mixed-type variables provides the optimization procedure a useful flexibility in the “decision making” modelling and operational scenarios definition as well. Specific geometric-based linear obstacle avoidance models have been implemented in addition to suitable penalty functions. The use of these models forces each path to be consistent with the environmental constraints favouring the identification of feasible trajectories with a reduced number of iterations and particles. The path planning model has been developed with particular care devoted to reduce computational effort as well as to improve algorithm capability in handling general-shaped obstacles both in 2-D and 3-D environments. Various applications have been performed in order to test the effectiveness of the proposed flight path generator. Applicability of the proposed optimization model also to vehicles with VTOL and hovering capabilities has been preliminarily assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider a novel mobile relaying technique, where the relay nodes are mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and hence are capable of moving at high speed. Compared with conventional static relaying, mobile relaying offers a new degree of freedom for performance enhancement via careful relay trajectory design. We study the throughput maximization problem in mobile relaying systems by optimizing the source/relay transmit power along with the relay trajectory, subject to practical mobility constraints (on the UAV’s speed and initial/final relay locations), as well as the information-causality constraint at the relay. It is shown that for the fixed relay trajectory, the throughput-optimal source/relay power allocations over time follow a “staircase” water filling structure, with non-increasing and non-decreasing water levels at the source and relay, respectively. On the other hand, with given power allocations, the throughput can be further improved by optimizing the UAV’s trajectory via successive convex optimization. An iterative algorithm is thus proposed to optimize the power allocations and relay trajectory alternately. Furthermore, for the special case with free initial and final relay locations, the jointly optimal power allocation and relay trajectory are derived. Numerical results show that by optimizing the trajectory of the relay and power allocations adaptive to its induced channel variation, mobile relaying is able to achieve significant throughput gains over the conventional static relaying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Multi-Step A^\ast (MSA ^\ast), a search algorithm based on A ^\ast for multi-objective 4-D vehicle motion planning (three spatial and one time dimensions). The research is principally motivated by the need for offline and online motion planning for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For UAVs operating in large dynamic uncertain 4-D environments, the motion plan consists of a sequence of connected linear tracks (or trajectory segments). The track angle and velocity are important parameters that are often restricted by assumptions and a grid geometry in conventional motion planners. Many existing planners also fail to incorporate multiple decision criteria and constraints such as wind, fuel, dynamic obstacles, and the rules of the air. It is shown that MSA ^\ast finds a cost optimal solution using variable length, angle, and velocity trajectory segments. These segments are approximated with a grid-based cell sequence that provides an inherent tolerance to uncertainty. The computational efficiency is achieved by using variable successor operators to create a multiresolution memory-efficient lattice sampling structure. The simulation studies on the UAV flight planning problem show that MSA^\ast meets the time constraints of online replanning and finds paths of equivalent cost but in a quarter of the time (on average) of a vector neighborhood-based A^\ast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of an autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in an unknown environment is a prerequisite for its execution of complex tasks and is the main research direction in related fields. The autonomous navigation of UAVs in unknown environments requires solving the problem of autonomous exploration of the surrounding environment and path planning, which determines whether the drones can complete mission-based flights safely and efficiently. Existing UAV autonomous flight systems hardly perform well in terms of efficient exploration and flight trajectory quality. This paper establishes an integrated solution for autonomous exploration and path planning. In terms of autonomous exploration, frontier-based and sampling-based exploration strategies are integrated to achieve fast and effective exploration performance. In the study of path planning in complex environments, an advanced Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm combining the adaptive weights and dynamic step size is proposed, which effectively solves the problem of balancing flight time and trajectory quality. Then, this paper uses the Hermite difference polynomial to optimization the trajectory generated by the RRT algorithm. We named proposed UAV autonomous flight system as Frontier and Sampling-based Exploration and Advanced RRT Planner system (FSEPlanner). Simulation performs in both apartment and maze environment, and results show that the proposed FSEPlanner algorithm achieves greatly improved time consumption and path distances, and the smoothed path is more in line with the actual flight needs of a UAV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including recent advances in aerial swarm robotics, trajectory optimization for aerial robots or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a distributed formation control algorithm for a group of aerial robots.

In recent years, the use of modern technology in military operations has become standard practice. Unmanned systems play an important role in operations such as reconnaissance and surveillance. This article examines a model for planning aerial reconnaissance using a fleet of mutually cooperating unmanned aerial vehicles to increase the effectiveness of the task. The model deploys a number of waypoints such that, when every waypoint is visited by any vehicle in the fleet, the area of interest is fully explored. The deployment of waypoints must meet the conditions arising from the technical parameters of the sensory systems used and tactical requirements of the task at hand. This paper proposes an improvement of the model by optimizing the number and position of waypoints deployed in the area of interest, the effect of which is to improve the trajectories of individual unmanned systems, and thus increase the efficiency of the operation. To achieve this optimization, a modified simulated annealing algorithm is proposed. The improvement of the model is verified by several experiments. Two sets of benchmark problems were designed: (a) benchmark problems for verifying the proposed algorithm for optimizing waypoints, and (b) benchmark problems based on typical reconnaissance scenarios in the real environment to prove the increased effectiveness of the reconnaissance operation. Moreover, an experiment in the SteelBeast simulation system was also conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]