Routing a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles: a trajectory optimisation-based framework

Walton Pereira Coutinho; Jörg Fliege; Maria Battarra; Anand Subramanian

doi:10.1016/j.trb.2025.103312

Routing a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles: a trajectory optimisation-based framework

Walton Pereira Coutinho
, Jörg Fliege
, Maria Battarra
, Anand Subramanian

Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
University of Southampton
Federal University of Paraíba

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (SciVal)

5 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We consider an aerial survey operation in which a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is required to visit several locations and then land in one of the available landing sites while optimising some performance criteria, subject to operational constraints and flight dynamics. We aim to minimise the maximum flight time of the UAVs. To efficiently solve this problem, we propose an algorithmic framework consisting of: (i) a nonlinear programming formulation of trajectory optimisation that accurately reflects the underlying flight dynamics and operational constraints; (ii) two sequential trajectory optimisation heuristics, designed to cope with the challenging task of finding feasible flight trajectories for a given route; and (iii) a routing metaheuristic combining iterated local search and a set-partitioning-based integer programming formulation. The proposed framework is tested on randomly generated instances with up to 50 waypoints, showing its efficacy.

Original language	English
Article number	103312
Number of pages	25
Journal	Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
Volume	200
Early online date	6 Sept 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2025.103312
Publication status	Published - 31 Oct 2025

Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on request.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the RNLI and Dr. Andràs Sóbester from the University of Southampton for suggesting this problem.

Funding

The first author received grants from CNPq, Brazil [Grant no. 202241/2041-9 ]. The authors thank UFPE/PPGEP-CAA for supporting this project through the internal call PROPESQI-PROPG-DRI Prof. Visitante N°. 13/2022 and CAPES, Brazil through project 88881.917250/2023-01. The work reported in this paper was undertaken as part of the ITEA4 SIREN project at the University of Bath (UKRI, Innovate UK). The last author received funding from CNPq, Brazil [Grants no. 406245/2021-5 and 309580/2021-8 ] and by the Paraíba State Research Foundation (FAPESQ), Brazil [Grant no. 041/2023 ].

Funders	Funder number
University of Bath
University of Southampton
UK Research and Innovation
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico	202241/2041-9, 13/2022
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior	88881.917250/2023-01
Innovate UK	406245/2021-5, 309580/2021-8
Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado da Paraíba	041/2023

Keywords

Routing
Trajectory optimisation
Unmanned gliders

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Civil and Structural Engineering
Transportation

Access to Document

10.1016/j.trb.2025.103312

GRTOP_TRB (accepted author manuscript)Accepted author manuscript, 2.03 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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Routing a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles: a trajectory optimisation-based framework

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Acknowledgements

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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