A path planning algorithm for a crop monitoring fixed-wing unmanned aerial system

With the growing demand for automation in agriculture, industries increasingly rely on drones to perform crop monitoring and surveillance. In this regard, fixed-wing unmanned aerial systems (UASs) are viable platforms for scanning a large crop field, given their payload capacity and range. To achieve maximum coverage without landing for battery replacement, an algorithm for producing a minimal required energy survey path is essential. Hence, an energy-aware coverage path planning algorithm is proposed herein. The constraints for a fixed-wing UAS to fly at low altitudes while achieving full coverage of the crop field are first analyzed. Then, the full path is decomposed into straight-line and U-turn primitives. Finally, an algorithm to calculate a combination of straight-line segments and U-turns is proposed to obtain the path with minimum required energy consumption. The genetic algorithm is used to efficiently determine the order of the straight-line paths to traverse. Case studies show that the proposed algorithm can produce planning results for a convex-polygon-shaped crop field.