ECTSA: An Efficient Charging Time Scheduling Algorithm for Wireless Rechargeable UAV Network

With the development of airborne equipment and integrated avionics technology, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network replaces human beings in many fields. To improve the durability of the UAV network, we propose a nondisruptive wireless rechargeable UAV network (WRUN) model, in which UAVs can be charged by wireless static chargers (WSCs) without returning back to the charging platform. Under the nondisruptive WRUN model, a baseline algorithm is proposed to solve the nondisruptive charging time schedule problem (nCTSP), in which chargers do not release energy all the time and can ensure UAVs do not run out of energy. Then to improve the energy utilization rate of WSCs, we propose an efficient charging time scheduling algorithm (ECTSA), in which the flight time and paths of UAVs are discretized and nCTSP is transformed into a linear binary integer programming (LBIP) problem to calculate the efficient charging time periods of WSCs. Finally, experiments are conducted to verify that ECTSA can improve the energy utilization of WSCs.