Determination of robot drop location for military path planning using GIS application

Abstract

Due to the uncertainties and higher risks of fatality in combat situations, Unmanned Ground Robots (UGR) may be proven to be a safer alternative for carrying out critical military missions, such as search and rescue, and reconnaissance operations. Among many issues involved in the Military Path Planning (MPP) problem, this paper discusses factors affecting drop locations of the UGR in the battlefield. A customized GISbased model which finds suitable drop locations of the UGR is developed accordingly. The objective is to reach a known target location as quickly as possible, while minimizing its energy consumption as well as intervention from the enemies distributed in the battlefield. The model is tested on a complex digital terrain, assuming there is a presence of enemy's surveillance system. The result confirms the capability of the proposed method, by indicating that the candidate drop locations are feasible without violation of the specified constraints.