EXPANDING OPTIMIZATION OF ENERGY EFFICIENT UAV ROUTING IN SUPPORT OF MARINE CORPS EXPEDITIONARY ADVANCED BASE OPERATIONS WITH MULTIPLE SUPPLY DEPOTS

Abstract

United States Marine Corps expeditionary units require last-mile resupply of essential items while maintaining a small operational footprint. The use of automated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allows for units to be resupplied upon request, while keeping a low footprint in the operational area. Jatho in 2020 described an optimization model that prescribes optimal UAV routes and flight trajectories while accounting for wind conditions and known obstacles between requested resupply units. Jatho's model allows only for UAVs to depart and return to one supply depot. This limits a UAV's ability to recharge and resupply, thereby limiting the number of units a UAV can visit. We expand the UAV routing model seen in Jatho to include multiple supply depots, eliminating the constraint for a supply UAV to use only one depot. Additional supply depots give UAVs the ability to recharge and resupply to fulfill further requests. We also describe a new depot selection model, allowing planners to choose the set of depots that can be expected to perform best in a given set of operational scenarios.