A real-time coverage and tracking algorithm for UAVs based on potential field

One of the important applications of the UAVs is the coverage of an area and tracking possible targets. When the area is large, optimal coverage and smart search will be an important issue. On the other hand, in real time applications, its computational time is as important as the optimality of the algorithm. In this paper, an algorithm based on Potential Field is proposed to search an area in a way to result good performance. One of Potential Field pitfall is getting stuck in local minima, which is alleviated using Random Moves, avoid Past, and Globally Oriented Search in this approach. The approach has been simulated and compared with two common benchmark search space methods. Finally, the method is implemented on a quadrotor and its performance is evaluated.