Coverage Planning

Problem Statement

Coverage planning generates paths that guarantee spatial visitation for inspection, mapping, or search missions.

Model and Formulation

Coverage objective:

$$ \max \int_{\Omega} \mathbb{1}_{visited}(q),dq $$

subject to vehicle dynamics, footprint size, and mission-time constraints.

Practical Notes

• Common decompositions include boustrophedon and grid sweep methods.
• Turn penalties should be considered for fixed-wing platforms.
• Map uncertainty can trigger adaptive revisitation.

Implementation and Execution

python -m uav_sim.simulations.path_planning.coverage_planning

Evidence

References

• Choset, Coverage for Robotics: A Survey (2001)
• Galceran and Carreras, A Survey on Coverage Path Planning for Robotics (2013)

Related Algorithms

• Voronoi Coverage
• PRM 3D