Moving ground target tracking in dense obstacle areas using UAVs

Abstract

Tracking moving ground targets using unmanned air vehicles(UAVs) has important applications in several areas. Keeping a close line of sight from a UAV to a target in a densely populated area is a challenging task because of many constraints. An algorithm for several UAVs to track a moving target cooperatively is proposed. From random samples on the ground and obstacles, a cost inversely proportional to chance to keep the target inside the camera field of view is defined. The centre of the flight path and the separation angles between UAVs along the circular flight path is optimally determined to minimise the cost. The efficiency of the algorithm is tested by Monte-Carlo simulations based on random scenario generators. Copyright © 2007 International Federation of Automatic Control All Rights Reserved.