A Study in Search Pattern Efficiency Using Under-Actuated Aircraft

Abstract

Area coverage algorithms or Search Patterns have always been useful in many real life problems such as search and rescue missions, crime prevention, forest fire detection and many others. This means knowing which algorithms to apply in the different cases in order to obtain the best results is immensely valuable. The goal of this paper is to evaluate mission performance and with it discover the best approach for various possible problems. In order to achieve this goal, multiple metrics were created to have some indicators that can be used to calculate search pattern performance. Various simulations were conducted, with different strategies and parameters, to compare distinct approaches to the various missions. These experiments consisted in applying different search patterns in a search mission with distinct delimitation areas and parameters. The results obtained allow the user to easily adopt the most efficient strategy in the scope of the simulations executed. For example, the larger the ratio between height and width of the delimitation area, the better the Parallel Track pattern is, when compared to the others. On the other hand, the closer the area is to a circle, the better the Spiral search pattern is, when compared to the others.