Multiobjective mission planning for aerial surveillance vehicles

Important actions such as reconnaissance and surveillance, land and border security, search and rescue operations are carried out with manned and unmanned aerial vehicle systems. Thanks to these actions, the speed of obtaining information and intervention in civilian life increases. In military life, risky or dangerous areas can be easily reached, reconnaissance and surveillance can be done. For these activities, good task planning is of great importance. In this thesis, a study has been carried out on the planning of a mission for aerial reconnaissance vehicles. An aircraft, starting from a take-off point, returns to the take-off point by observing the target areas it needs to go to. It acquires information about the target by scanning the targets to which it will go in rectangular strips. In the study, two conflicting goals are considered. The first objective is maximizing the total information, and the second is minimizing the distance traveled during the task. To find the efficient solutions, a biobjective mixed integer programming model is developed and solved using the 𝜀-constraint method. A heuristic solution method is also proposed for larger problem instances. Both solution methods are tested on different-sized problems.