Cooperative control for UAV's searching risky environments for targets

In this paper a model and algorithmic solution are created to control the path planning decision processes of multiple cooperating autonomous aerial vehicles engaged in a search of an uncertain and risky environment. Methods to incorporate a priori and dynamic information about the targets and to incorporate threats in a three-dimensional environment into a computationally feasible dynamic programming approach are provided. Some basic simulation results demonstrate the functionality of this approach, and provide a baseline for future work.