UAV mission planning subject to weather forecast constraints

A multi-trip UAV delivery problem is considered in which trajectories are planned for UAVs operating in a hostile environment. UAV battery capacity and payload weight as well as vehicle reuse are taken into account. A fleet of homogeneous UAVs fly in a 2D plane matching a distribution network to service customers in a collision-free manner. The goal is to obtain a sequence of sub-missions that will ensure delivery of requested amounts of goods to customers, satisfying their demands within a given time horizon under the given weather forecast constraints. In this context, our objective is to establish the relationships linking decision variables such as wind speed and direction, battery capacity and payload weight. Computational experiments which allow to assess alternative strategies of UAV sub-mission planning are presented.