In the context of area coverage tasks in three-dimensional space, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) clusters face challenges such as uneven task assignment, low task efficiency, and high energy consumption. This paper proposes an efficient mission planning strategy for UAV clusters in area coverage tasks. First, the area coverage search task is analyzed, and the coverage scheme of the task area is determined. Based on this, the cluster task area is divided into subareas. Then, for the UAV cluster task allocation problem, a step-by-step solution is proposed. Afterward, an improved fuzzy C-clustering algorithm is used to determine the UAV task area. Furthermore, an optimized particle swarm hybrid ant colony (PSOHAC) algorithm is proposed to plan the UAV cluster task path. Finally, the feasibility and superiority of the proposed scheme and improved algorithm are verified by simulation experiments. The simulation results show that the proposed method achieves full coverage of the task area and efficiently completes the task allocation of the UAV cluster. Compared with related comparison algorithms, the method proposed in this paper can achieve a maximum improvement of 21.9% in balanced energy consumption efficiency for UAV cluster task search planning, and the energy efficiency of the UAV cluster can be improved by up to 7.9%.
Keywords: UAV; UAV cluster; area coverage; path planning; task assignment.