Cooperative Search and Target Response Mission Planning for Multi-UAV Systems in Dangerous Environments

The planning of a multi-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) system's search and target response mission in dangerous environments is the focus of this publication. Among the many studies that propose algorithms for mission planning with relation to search and target response, only few of them take into account the possibility of UAV damage and crashes during the mission. This article presents a solution by proposing a value game mission planning (VGMP) scheme based on game theory for multi-UAV systems, taking consideration that crashes have a substantial impact on the system's search and target response capabilities. This method considers the UAV system as a group of intelligent agents that collaborate to choose the exploration or target response action based on values. The approach accounts for the sunk cost of the target response while also considering the possible benefit of the search expedition. To forecast the likely reward of a given action, this method also makes use of a value prediction module. Through practical simulations on various maps, the effectiveness of these proposed algorithms is assessed.