An intelligent UAV path planning optimization method for monitoring the risk of unattended offshore oil platforms

To ensure the safe operation of static and dynamic devices in a limited platform space and prevent security threats caused by accidents and external intruders, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is becoming an important tool to monitor and reduce the operational risk of unattended offshore oil platforms. However, UAVs may encounter location errors, adversely affecting patrol efficiency and accuracy. Therefore, the optimal UAV path planning is vital to ensure complete monitoring routes and reduce the risk presented by the marine environment, devices, and employees on unattended offshore platforms. This paper established a multi-objective mathematical model with the shortest flight path and minimum correction times for the intelligent UAV patrol of unattended offshore platforms. An intelligent algorithm with large-scale constraints for UAV path planning was proposed based on non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms. A flight path length of 8076.11 m and 25 correction times presented the optimal solution. The results indicated that the proposed algorithm could be used to plan an effective and accurate three-dimensional (3D) UAV flight path according to the size of the offshore oil platform. This is highly significant for the intelligent risk monitoring of unattended offshore platforms in practical engineering in the future.