Task Allocation of UAVs for Monitoring Missions via Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation and Experimental Validation

Abstract

This study addresses the optimisation of task allocation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) within industrial monitoring missions. The proposed methodology integrates a Genetic Algorithms (GA) with a 2-Opt local search technique to obtain a high-quality solution. Our approach was experimentally validated in an industrial zone to demonstrate its efficacy in real-world scenarios. Also, a Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulator for the UAVs team is introduced. Moreover, insights about the correlation between the theoretical cost function and the actual battery consumption and time of flight are deeply analysed. Results show that the considered costs for the optimisation part of the problem closely correlate with real-world data, confirming the practicality of the proposed approach.