UAV search coverage under priority of important targets based on multi-location domain decomposition

In recent years, the coverage path planning (CPP) of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has attracted attention in reconnaissance, patrol, and search and rescue efforts, aiming to plan the paths for UAVs to cover a specified area as efficiently as possible. This paper proposes a UAV path fast coverage model to prioritize important targets with domain composition based on the starting point and location of the targets, combined with the domain decomposition strategy of important targets. Considering the constraints of the number of UAVs, the number of operators, and the flight time, the parallel search strategy can plan the coverage scheme with the shortest search time for the search range, and further obtain the coordinate points and path coordinates of the UAV turning. Finally, through multiple simulation experiments in four maps of various islands, the proposed method is verified to have an improved performance compare to the two track path coverage algorithms methods in terms of the coverage efficiency and the time complexity, thus providing a more scientific basis for the path coverage research of multi-target searches.