Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can collaborate as teams to accomplish diverse mission objectives, such as target search and tracking. This paper introduces a method that leverages accumulated target-density information over the course of a UAV mission to adapt path-planning rewards, guiding UAVs toward areas with a higher likelihood of target presence. The target density is modeled using a Gaussian process, which is iteratively updated as the UAVs search the environment. Unlike conventional search algorithms that prioritize unexplored regions, this approach incentivizes revisiting target-rich areas. The target-density information is shared across UAVs using decentralized consensus filters, enabling cooperative path selection that balances the exploration of uncertain regions with the exploitation of known high-density areas. The framework presented in this paper provides an adaptive cooperative search method that can quickly develop an understanding of the region’s target-dense areas, helping UAVs refine their search. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate this method in both a 2D grid region and road networks, showing up to a 26% improvement in target density estimates.
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On the Impact of Different Kernels and Training Data on a Gaussian Process Approach for Target Tracking
The application of multiple target tracking algorithms has exponentially increased during the last two decades. Recently, model-free approaches, such as Gaussian process regression and convolutional neural networks, have been developed for target tracking. This paper presents a simulation-based study on the practical aspects of a very promising and recently proposed Gaussian process method, namely the Gaussian process motion tracker [1]. The paper also provides design guidelines on the various aspects of the above-mentioned tracking method.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1903466
- PAR ID:
- 10161399
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- the International Conference on Information Fusion (Fusion 2020)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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