A Probabilistic Target Search Algorithm Based on Hierarchical Collaboration for Improving Rapidity of Drones

Abstract

Finding a target quickly is one of the most important tasks in drone operations. In particular, rapid target detection is a critical issue for tasks such as finding rescue victims during the golden period, environmental monitoring, locating military facilities, and monitoring natural disasters. Therefore, in this study, an improved hierarchical probabilistic target search algorithm based on the collaboration of drones at different altitudes is proposed. This is a method for reducing the search time and search distance by improving the information transfer methods between high-altitude and low-altitude drones. Specifically, to improve the speed of target detection, a high-altitude drone first performs a search of a wide area. Then, when the probability of existence of the target is higher than a certain threshold, the search information is transmitted to a low-altitude drone which then performs a more detailed search in the identified area. This method takes full advantage of fast searching capabilities at high altitudes. In other words, it reduces the total time and travel distance required for searching by quickly searching a wide search area. Several drone collaboration scenarios that can be performed by two drones at different altitudes are described and compared to the proposed algorithm. Through simulations, the performances of the proposed algorithm and the cooperation scenarios are analyzed. It is demonstrated that methods utilizing hierarchical searches with drones are comparatively excellent and that the proposed algorithm is approximately 13% more effective than a previous method and much better compared to other scenarios.

Evaluation of Quality of Hidden Transmitters Detection by a Group of Coordinated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles on the basis of Entropy Decrease Dynamics

“…In recent publications, in particular in the article of Il-Kyu Ha and You-Ze Cho [1] three main groups of search methods are mentioned: 1) search methods based on image analysis; 2) methods based on radiation analysis; 3) and probabilistic methods. Methods based on image analysis, such as Abdulla Al-Kaff et al [2], are undoubtedly promising, but today are quite difficult to implement, as they require significant computing resources on UAV's board.…”

Coevolution Pigeon-Inspired Optimization with Cooperation-Competition Mechanism for Multi-UAV Cooperative Region Search

“…where P m,n c (k) ∈ [0, 1] is the detection probability of the airborne sensor to the target [27]. P m,n f (k) ∈ [0, 1] is the false alarm rate, which indicates the probability that there is no target in the cell but a target is reported.…”

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“…This finding leads to a simplistic deduction that a mixture of aircraft has been operated for the search and rescue missions as the operations may involve both high and low altitude search. As indicated in [12], the mixture of high and low altitudes' operation could facilitate in optimizing the search and rescue missions. Furthermore, Fig.…”