Autonomous Mission Planning for Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Multiscenario Reconnaissance

Before a fixed-wing UAV executes target tracking missions, it is essential to identify targets through reconnaissance mission areas using onboard payloads. This paper presents an autonomous mission planning method designed for such reconnaissance operations, enabling effective target identification prior to tracking. Existing planning methods primarily focus on flight performance, energy consumption, and obstacle avoidance, with less attention to integrating payload. Our proposed method emphasizes the combination of two key functions: flight path planning and payload mission planning. In terms of path planning, we introduce a method based on the Hierarchical Traveling Salesman Problem (HTSP), which utilizes the nearest neighbor algorithm to find the optimal visit sequence and entry points for area targets. When dealing with area targets containing no-fly zones, HTSP quickly calculates a set of waypoints required for coverage path planning (CPP) based on the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem (GTSP), ensuring thorough and effective reconnaissance coverage. In terms of payload mission planning, our proposed method fully considers payload characteristics such as scan resolution, imaging width, and operating modes to generate predefined mission instruction sets. By meticulously analyzing payload constraints, we further optimized the path planning results, ensuring that each instruction meets the payload performance requirements. Finally, simulations validated the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed autonomous mission planning method in reconnaissance tasks.