Position Planning for Monitoring Shepherd-UAVs Using the Herd’s Location Information

A position planning scheme is proposed for the monitoring shepherd-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) using the herd’s location information and the bare bones fireworks algorithm (BBFWA). First, we model the UAV-based herd monitoring problem by making some reasonable assumptions and simplifications. Then, under the inspiration of the multi-agent system that enhances the system robustness and efficiency, the multi-shepherd-UAV solution is introduced, and the positions of the shepherd-UAVs are optimized via BBFWA using real-time location information of the animals in the herd. Furthermore, the validity of the scheme is illustrated by numerical experiments, and some remarks are given according to the experiment result. The proposed method can be used in smart pastures and serve as a candidate solution in some other UAV-based applications.