UAV Mission Planning: Routing and Target Neutralization in Hostile Environments

We study the mission planning problem of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating in a hostile environment. The mission aims to neutralize the targets, which requires decisions for selecting targets, determining the target visitation sequence, loading payloads, allocating payloads to the selected targets, and specifying delivery locations and distances for payloadtarget engagements. Each target holds importance for the mission, and the objective is to maximize the overall utility collected from the entire terrain by neutralizing targets under capacity, time, and safety restrictions. We first develop approaches to represent the movements of the UAV and payload delivery in continuous space. Our model allows the UAV to approach targets from one of the multiple waypoints and release payloads from a continuum of options within the distance between the approached waypoint and the target location. We then develop a mathematical optimization model, which is linearized into a mixed-integer programming model, enabling us to derive optimal decisions for the routing and allocation requirements of the problem. We perform a comprehensive computational study to assess the impact of problem parameters and to identify model limitations. The results highlight the impacts of constraints, the ability of the model to handle varying levels of complexity, and applicability of the model to real-world scenarios.