A divide and conquer algorithm for rectilinear region coverage

We give an algorithm to generate a coverage motion plan for a single unmanned reconnaissance aerial vehicle (URAV) over a holed rectilinear polygonal region. The URAV is equipped with a stabilized downward-looking sensor which has a square footprint of a fixed area. The algorithm is based on the principle of divide-and-conquer. In the first step, we generate the lexicographically maximum area rectangle partition of the polygon. We outline a sweep line based algorithm to compute this partition. Next, we rind a coverage motion plan for movement of the sensor over each rectangle in the partition. Plans for adjacent rectangles are finally merged to generate a complete plan for the entire region. Our algorithm yields paths with minimal length and minimal turns.