Flight Optimization for an Agricultural Unmanned Air Vehicle

Abstract

A method is proposed to generate paths for an agricultural fixed-wing Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) covering an arbitrary polygonal field. The method minimizes time, accounting for the effect of wind on the UAV's ground track. Under the assumption that the path must be a set of parallel lines, covering the field with strips, the method determines the best angle for those strips and the best sequence and directions in which they should be visited. Numerical examples show the dependence of the resulting flight paths on both wind and field geometry.