Energy-efficient Trajectory Planning and Speed Scheduling for UAV-assisted Data Collection

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted data collection is a promising technology, where a base station (BS) is mounted on a UAV to collect data from ground sensors (GSs). However, it is very challenging to save the energy of UAV while completing the tasks of data collection. In this work, a novel energy consumption model of UAV is adopted, where the UAV flies at a proper speed is the most energy efficient, i.e., the UAV will cost more energy when it flies faster or slower. According to this model, we investigate the Energy-efficient Trajectory Planning and Speed Scheduling (ETPSS) problem, aiming at minimizing the total energy consumption of UAV by determining flight trajectory and speed of UAV while completing the task of data collection for each GS. To solve this problem, we decompose it into two sub-problems, i.e., trajectory design and speed scheduling, and propose a three-step scheme named Energy-efficient Trajectory and Speed optimization (ETSO). Moreover, the second step of ETSO optimally solves the speed scheduling sub-problem. Finally, we conduct simulation experiments, and the results demonstrate that the ETSO performs well on energy efficiency.