Centralized path planning for unmanned aerial vehicles with a heterogeneous mix of sensors

This paper is concerned with real-time optimal UAV path planning in a multi-emitter geolocation environment. All UAVs are assumed to be controlled by a central processing unit. A UAV waypoint-update/steering algorithm is developed based on maximizing the determinant of Fisher information matrix for localization of stationary emitters. Soft and hard geometric constraints for threat/collision avoidance are also implemented. An effective joint path optimization and dynamic sensor allocation algorithm is proposed to handle communication bandwidth constraints. The performance of the developed steering algorithm is illustrated with extensive simulation examples.