Energy Minimization of Dynamic Multi-UAV Communication Network for Cooperative Multi-Hop Data Gathering

Abstract

This study proposes a minimum-energy operational planning problem for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) conducting a cooperative multi-hop data-gathering mission. A multi-UAV ad-hoc network collects data from multiple sources and transmits them to a ground base station. The proposed mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) formulation simultaneously determines cooperative task allocation, data gathering schedule, dynamic aerial data flow, and UAV trajectories to minimize operational energy consumption. A hierarchical two-phase solution procedure that decomposes the original problem into a series of less complex problems and solves them efficiently is developed. The effectiveness of the proposed formulation and the solution procedure is demonstrated through numerical experiments and comparison with benchmarking operational schemes.