Offline and online task allocation algorithms for multiple UAVs in wireless sensor networks

In recent years, UAV techniques are developing very fast, and UAVs are becoming more and more popular in both civilian and military fields. An important application of UAVs is rescue and disaster relief. In post-earthquake evaluation scenes where it is difficult or dangerous for human to reach, UAVs and sensors can form a wireless sensor network and collect environmental information. In such application scenarios, task allocation algorithms are important for UAVs to collect data efficiently. This paper firstly proposes an improved immune multi-agent algorithm for the offline task allocation stage. The proposed algorithm provides higher accuracy and convergence performance by improving the optimization operation. Then, this paper proposes an improved adaptive discrete cuckoo algorithm for the online task reallocation stage. By introducing adaptive step size transformation and appropriate local optimization operator, the speed of convergence is accelerated, making it suitable for real-time online task reallocation. Simulation results have proved the effectiveness of the proposed task allocation algorithms.