Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11

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Computers and Operations Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cor

A vehicle routing problem arising in unmanned aerial monitoring

Lu Zhen a,∗, Miao Li a, Gilbert Laporte b, Wencheng Wang a
a
School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
b
Department of Decision Sciences, HEC Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used to perform monitoring tasks both in the military and
Received 16 March 2018 civilian areas, and the planning of their routes is critical. This study investigates a routing problem in
Revised 15 October 2018
which UAVs monitor a set of areas with different accuracy requirements. This problem is a variant of the
Accepted 2 January 2019
classical vehicle routing problem (VRP), where one must determine not only the order in which to visit
Available online 8 January 2019
a set of nodes located in the plane, but also the height at which to visit them, which impacts the accu-
Keywords: racy level and the service time. An integer programming model is formulated to optimize flight routes
Unmanned aerial vehicle and minimize the total time needed to complete the monitoring tasks. A tabu search metaheuristic is de-
Route planning veloped for the problem. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to assess the efficiency of the
Vehicle routing problem heuristic.
Aerial monitoring
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction model is suitable for scenarios in which the monitoring require-

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones,
constitute a new type of monitoring equipment. By loading dif-
ferent imaging sensors, UAVs can capture target images, and the
monitored images can be transmitted in real time to a control
station via a wireless transmission system. Recent developments
in aviation, microelectronics, computers, navigation, communica-
tions, sensors and other related technologies have yielded contin-
uous improvements in the performance of UAVs. These vehicles
can be used to monitor the water environment, traffic flows and
oil pipelines (Alotaibi et al., 2018). The use of UAVs as a mean of
monitoring offers numerous advantages, such as the capacity to
observe wide areas (covering 30 0–50 0 m2 at a height of 150–
300 m), low cost, excellent flexibility, high efficiency and real-time
operations (Harwin and Lucieer, 2012). As a result, UAVs are exten-
sively employed in meteorological exploration, disaster assessment,
geological surveys, environmental monitoring, resources prospect-
ing and other fields. The monitoring accuracy grades requirements
vary from one area to another, and the time needed to perform a
monitoring task depends on the height of the UAV. Given a fleet
of UAVs with limited maximum flight time and several monitor-
ing areas with different required accuracy grades, it is critical to
optimize the routing and heights of UAVs.
In this paper, we formulate an integer linear programming
model for the UAV routing and height selection problem. This
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lzhen@shu.edu.cn (L. Zhen).
ments are known in advance. In contrast to the well-known vehicle
routing problem (VRP) which only determines the order in which
to visit a set of nodes, here we also have to determine the height at
which each node is visited by a UAV. As we will show, commercial
integer linear programming solvers such as CPLEX can obtain opti-
mal solutions within reasonable time only for small-scale instances
of the problem. We have therefore developed a tailored tabu search
metaheuristic to solve large-scale instances within relatively short
computing times.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 reviews the literature on UAV routing. Section 3 formally
defines the problem. A mathematical model is then formulated
in Section 4. Section 5 describes our tabu search metaheuristic.
Section 6 presents the parameter settings and the results of
extensive numerical experiments. Conclusions are outlined in the
last section.
2. Related literature on UAV routing
There are two categories of relevant research streams: the
VRP and UAV routing. The VRP literature has already been exten-
sively surveyed in recent years. For a comprehensive coverage, see
Toth and Vigo (2014). In this section, we mainly review the litera-
ture on UAV routing.
Because UAVs are widely used in both military and civil ap-
plications, and UAV-related studies have become a popular re-
search topic in recent years. Several academic papers have been
written about UAV mission path planning problems in military

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2019.01.001
0305-0548/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11
environments. Specifically, these problems aim at planning UAV
flight paths to complete their tasks and avoid enemy threats
such as radar detection, obstacles or collisions with other UAVs
(Alotaibi et al., 2018; Beard et al., 2002; Casbeer and Holsap-
ple, 2011; Xia et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2016). In civil applica-
tions, UAV routing problems arise in the planning of monitoring
and delivery tasks, mostly in the context of physical infrastructure,
agriculture, transport, and entertainment and media applications
(Otto et al., 2018).
The planning of area coverage and UAV routing is a major
optimization problem in the field of UAV monitoring. Classical
UAV coverage path planning problems refer to finding UAV paths
so that all nodes of an area can be covered (Otto et al., 2018).
The objective is to minimize the distance-related cost (Oh et al.,
2014; Torres et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2014), energy consumption
(Di Puglia Pugliese et al., 2016; Li et al., 2016; Zorbas et al., 2016),
or completion time (Avellar et al., 2015; Barrientos et al., 2011;
Nedjati et al., 2016). Some recent work exists in this field which
formulates this problem in a three-dimensional (3D) space net-
work. Thus Mozaffari et al. (2016) studied the optimal deployment
of multiple UAVs equipped with directional antennas used as wire-
less base stations. They proposed a solution approach based on
circle packing theory to determine the 3D locations of UAVs with
the aim of maximizing the coverage area and the coverage lifetime
of UAVs. They also explored the relationship between the altitude
and locations of UAVs, and between the number of UAVs and the
beamwidth of the directional antennas. Zorbas et al. (2016) pro-
posed the static and dynamic UAV location problems considering
3D deployment of the UAVs with the aim of minimizing the num-
ber of UAVs and the total energy consumption, which is related to
the UAV positions. They formulated this problem by defining an
integer linear and a mixed integer non-linear optimization models,
and they designed centralized and localized heuristics to solve the
problems. Caillouet and Razafindralambo (2017) presented a 3D
model for the problem of covering ground targets, in which UAVs
monitor the targets and collect the information from the ground.
Their goal is to cover all the targets while minimizing deployment
cost and the UAVs altitude. They computed a Pareto front to ob-
tain non-dominated solutions to their bi-objective model whithin
reasonable computing times.
If the area is discretized, the UAV coverage path planning prob-
lem becomes a UAV routing problem, which can be modeled as
a basic routing problem, such as the traveling salesman problem
(TSP) (Murray and Chu, 2015; Phung et al., 2017), the multiple TSP
(Manyam et al., 2017; Sundar and Rathinam, 2017; Vilar and Shin,
2013), or the VRP (Cho et al., 2015; Chow, 2016; Coelho et al.,
2017; Di Puglia Pugliese et al., 2017; Guerriero et al., 2014; Kim
et al., 2013). Among these papers, VPR-based UAV routing prob-
lems are particularly relevant to our study. Kim et al. (2013) de-
veloped a mixed integer linear program (MILP) to model the prob-
lem of scheduling UAVs with multiple shared bases in several lo-
cations, considering that the duration of UAV missions is limited
by battery or fuel capacity. They proposed a genetic algorithm
to obtain feasible solutions when solvers such as CPLEX cannot.
Guerriero et al. (2014) proposed a distributed dynamic schedul-
ing system to film a football match by autonomous UAVs and for-
mulated the problem as a multi-criteria optimization model based
on a VRP with soft time windows (VRPTW), in which the objec-
tive are the total distances traveled by the UAVs, customer satis-
faction and the number of UAVs used in the solution. Similarly,
(Di Puglia Pugliese et al., 2017) considered a problem of film-
ing sport events with UAVs. Unlike their 2014 paper, the aim of
their bi-objective model is to ensure a maximum viewer satisfac-
tion and to minimize the distance traveled by the UAVs under a
static scenario. Cho et al. (2015) designed a VRP-based mathemat-
ical model for UAV-aided security operations in the oil and gas
industry, where UAVs are used to collect information about pos-
sible emergencies. The main goal of their model was to create
an optimal operational schedule for UAVs in order to satisfy the
monitoring needs in each of several time periods by considering
fixed and operating costs. Chow (2016) proposed a real-time data-
driven method to systematically deploy UAVs during multiple pe-
riods. They developed a deterministic arc-inventory routing model
and derived a stochastic dynamic policy for their problem which
was formulated as a selective VRP. This methodology was applica-
ble to scenarios with strong uncertainty and high costs, such as
city monitoring during major events. To solve the problem, they
proposed an approximate dynamic programming algorithm based
on least squares Monte Carlo simulation. Coelho et al. (2017) in-
troduced a fleet of heterogeneous UAVs routing problem to deal
with the vehicles’ limited autonomy by considering multiple charg-
ing stations and respecting operational requirements. They used a
mixed integer linear programming model to minimize seven dif-
ferent objective functions inspired by a multi-criteria view of a
real system. Their model was solved by a metaheuristic algorithm
that filters the non-dominated solutions from the pool of solutions
found in a branch-and-bound optimization tree, using a black-box
dynamic search algorithm.
The contribution of our research is threefold. First, we solve a
VRP arising in unmanned aerial monitoring in a three-dimensional
space rather than in a two-dimensional plane, where each flight
height corresponds to a monitoring accuracy level: the lower the
flight, the higher the monitoring accuracy. To the best of our
knowledge, this paper is the first work that explicitly defines a
VRP by considering the visiting heights of vehicles in the context
of UAVs monitoring. Second, the UAV routing and height selection
problem is mathematically formulated. We provide a model based
on that of the VRP to minimize the total time spent by the fleet,
while guaranteeing the monitoring accuracy of all areas and satis-
fying the maximum flight time allowed to perform tasks for each
UAV. Third, we design a tabu search metaheuristic that includes a
tailored heuristic for the generation of initial solutions. Our meta-
heuristic yields efficient solutions to the problem.
3. Formal problem description
The routing problem on which the UAV monitoring problem is
based is defined on a directed network G = (N, D ), where N is a
set of nodes in the plane and 0 ∈ N is a depot. We define a set
of heights H, where 0 ∈ H corresponds to the ground height at the
depot. The arc set is D = {((i, r ), ( j, s ))|i, j ∈ N; r, s ∈ H }. Moving a
UAV from (i, r) to (j, s) incurs a time consumption uir + tir js , where
uir is the observation time at (i, r) and tirjs is the travel time be-
tween the two locations. We are given a set K of UAVs, each with
a limited maximum flight time Tmax , and a set A of monitoring
areas with different accuracy grades. A binary coefficient bair in-
dicates whether monitoring area a ∈ A can be covered by a UAV
stopping at node i ∈ N at height r ∈ H. The problem is to select an
optimal flight route and heights for the UAVs in order to minimize
the total monitoring time. Here we define two groups of variables:
the first group determines the order of the space nodes to be tra-
versed by the UAVs, and the second group makes decision on the
height at which each UAV should stay for a given time period in
order to perform its monitoring task.
Fig. 1 depicts an example of this problem. In this figure, two
UAVs are sent to monitor a number of areas with different accu-
racy grades. The monitoring areas covered by some smaller mon-
itoring scopes (the darker circles) have a higher accuracy require-
ment, which forces the UAV to remain at a lower altitude for mon-
itoring. In contrast, if a UAV uses a higher altitude, it will cover a
wider area (the lighter circle).
 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11 3

Fig. 1. Illustration of two UAVs monitoring routes.

• All UAVs are isomorphic and every UAV can execute any moni-
toring task.
• The UAV velocity is constant and UAVs encounter the same air
resistance at different altitudes.
• Each UAV tour must start and end at the same depot.

4. Model formulation

In this section, we formulate an integer linear programming

model for the UAV monitoring problem. The model determines the
UAV flight routes as well as the monitoring heights. Each moni-
toring area has a specific monitoring requirement level, which is
known in advance and should be satisfied by the UAVs’ monitoring
Fig. 2. A simplified planar case of UAVs monitoring.
activities. Since the UAVs are battery-powered, limited battery ca-
pacity affects their flight time and monitoring time. Therefore the
We discretize large monitoring areas into several smaller objective of the model is to minimize the total time required for
squares, as shown in Fig. 2. Each square represents a unit monitor- completing all monitoring tasks.
ing area. In the figure, a UAV stays at a higher altitude to monitor
areas 1, 4 and 5 simultaneously, and with the same accuracy re-
quirements. However, monitoring area 2 requires a higher accuracy 4.1. Notations
than areas 1, 4 and 5. Although area 2 is covered by a monitoring
scope, which also covers the areas 1, 4 and 5, its accuracy require- We introduce the following notations for our mathematical
ment is not satisfied. Monitoring area 2 should be covered by an- model.
other monitoring scope with a higher accuracy requirement, i.e., a
smaller circle with dark color covering area 2. It should be noted Indices and sets
that a monitoring area can be covered by more than one moni- i, j index of a node in the plane; 0 denotes the depot.
toring scope it there exists at least one monitoring scope with an N set of all nodes in the plane.
accuracy at least equal to that required by the monitoring area. r, s index of a flight height; 0 denotes the ground height at
Before modeling the UAV monitoring problem, we list a number the depot.
of assumptions: H set of all possible flight heights.
a index of a monitoring area.
• The planar projections of the nodes in the space either are lo- A set of all monitoring areas.
cated at the center of discrete squares or at the vertices of the k index of a UAV.
K set of all UAVs.
squares, as shown in Fig. 2.
4 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11

Parameters
tir js time needed by a UAV to travel from node (i, r ) to ( j, s );
i, j ∈ N, r, s ∈ H. xir jsk ∈ {0, 1} i, j ∈ N, r, s ∈ H, k ∈ K
uir time needed by a UAV staying at node (i, r ) to monitor (10)
reachable areas; i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0}.
bair binary parameters; equal to one if and only if monitoring
area a can be covered by the monitoring scope of a UAV
that stops at node (i, r ) and the monitoring area’s yirk ∈ {0, 1} i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0}, k ∈ K.
monitoring accuracy requirement is also satisfied; a ∈ A, (11)
i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0}.
Tmax maximum flight time of each UAV. The objective function (1) minimizes the total time required to
perform all tasks. It contains two terms: the total traversal time
Decision variables and the total monitoring time. Constraint (2) guarantee that each
binary variables; equal to one if and only if UAV k travels monitoring area is covered by at least one monitoring scope of a
xir jsk along the link from (i, r ) to ( j, s ); i, j ∈ N, r, s ∈ H, k ∈ K. UAV while satisfying the monitoring accuracy requirements. Con-
yirk binary variables; equal to one if and only if UAV k stops straint (3) ensure that there will not be more than one UAV stop
at node (i, r ) to monitor; i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0}, k ∈ K. at the same node. Constraint (4) link the decision variables xirjsk
and yirk . Constraints (5) and (6) indicate that all UAV tours start
4.2. Mathematical model and end at the depot. Constraint (7) ensure flow conservation. Con-
straint (8) are subtour elimination constraints. Constraint (9) spec-
ify that the traversal time consumption and the monitoring time
   consumption of each UAV cannot exceed its maximum flight time.
Minimize Z = tir js xir jsk + uir yirk Constraints (10) and (11) define the domains of the variables.
i, j∈N r,s∈H k∈K i∈N r∈H k∈K Constraint (8) are commonly used to eliminate subtours in VRP
(1) models, but they are not suitable for direct use in CPLEX since it is
impractical to enumerate all subsets S of N × H with |S| ≥ 2. Here
subject to
we design an alternative way to eliminate subtours by defining
  
bair yirk ≥ 1 a∈A some additional variables and constraints.
i∈N\{0} r∈H \{0} k∈K Added variables
(2) μirk number of space nodes that have been visited by UAV k;
i ∈ N, r ∈ H, k ∈ K. μ00k = 0, and μirk is not defined if
space node (i, r ) is not visited by UAV k.

yirk ≤ 1 i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0} Added constraints
k∈K
(3) μ00k = 0 k∈K
(12)

xir jsk = yirk i ∈ N, r ∈ H, k ∈ K; (i, r ) = ( j, s )
j∈N s∈H μ jsk ≥ μirk + 1 − |N| × |H |(1 − xir jsk )
(4) i ∈ N, r ∈ H, j ∈ N\{0}, s ∈ H \{0}, k ∈ K; (i, r ) = ( j, s )
(13)

x00 jsk = 1 k∈K
j∈N s∈H

(5) 0 ≤ μirk ≤ |N | × |H | − 1 i ∈ N, r ∈ H, k ∈ K.
(14)
 As in Miller et al. (1960), the above constraints eliminate
xir00k = 1 k∈K
subtours. Although more variables and constraints are defined,
i∈N r∈H
the number of constraints and the model complexity are signifi-
(6)
cantly reduced compared with the number of Constraint (8). Con-
straint (8) will therefore be replaced with Constraints (12)–(14) in
  our implementation.
xir jsk = x jsirk i ∈ N, r ∈ H, k ∈ K; (i, r ) = ( j, s )
j∈N s∈H j∈N s∈H
5. Algorithmic strategy
(7)
The model presented in Section 4 can be solved by means
 of a commercial optimization software such as CPLEX for small-
xir jsk ≤ |S| − 1 k ∈ K; S ⊆ N × H, |S| ≥ 2
scale instances. However, for medium- and large-scale instances,
i∈N r∈H j∈N s∈H
the model becomes intractable. We have therefore developed a
(8) tailored tabu search metaheuristic in order to solve the proposed
model which is based on that of the classical VRP. Tabu search is
    a heuristic solution approach developed by Glover (1986), which
tir js xir jsk + uir yirk ≤ Tmax k∈K extends some traditional local search algorithms and has been suc-
i, j∈N r,s∈H i∈N\{0} r∈H \{0} cessfully applied to a wide variety of routing problems (Chen et al.,
(9) 2006; Lai et al., 2016; Wen et al., 2009; Xu et al., 2017).
 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11 5

Algorithm 1 Algorithm framework of tabu search metaheuristic. • Initial solution

1: Generate an initial solution as the current solution yn
according We present in Algorithm 2 a heuristic to generate an initial
to Algorithm 2 and obtain its objective value by using CPLEX to solution corresponding to the core variables yirk . In Algorithm 2,
solve the mathematical model. Au ⊆A is the set of all areas that have not been monitored.
2: Set the iteration number n = 1, the number of iterations u = 0
for which the best known solution has remained unchanged, Algorithm 2 Procedure for generating an initial solution of yirk .
the tabu list T L = ∅, and the tabu length l.
1: Generate the index of UAV k randomly chosen in K for each
3: while the iteration number n has not reached a preset maxi-
areas a ∈ A.
mum value iter_max or the number of iterations u for which
2: For each area a ∈ A and the UAV k ∈ K, record the list of space
the best known solution has been unchanged has not reached
nodes (i, r ), i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0} where the UAV k can stay for
a preset maximum value unc_max do
monitoring area a with the area’s monitoring accuracy require-
4: Generate neighborhoods of the current solution yn and ob-
ment satisfied.
tain their objective values.
3: if the areas a ∈ A only can be monitored by the UAV k ∈ K stop-
5: Sort neighborhood solutions according to their objective
ping at one space node (i, r ), i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0} then
value and identify the one with the minimum objective value.
4: Update the status indicating that these areas a have be
6: if elements of a neighborhood solution are not in the tabu
monitored and set yirk = 1.
list then
5: end if
7: Replace the current solution yn with this neighborhood
6: while there are areas that have not been monitored do
solution.
7: Calculate the number of areas a ∈ Au that can be monitored
8: else if elements of a neighborhood solution are in the tabu
by the UAVs k ∈ K stopping over at each space node (i, r ), i ∈
list but this neighborhood solution satisfies the aspiration cri-
N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0}.
terion then
8: if there is a space node (i, r ), i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0} where
9: Replace the current solution yn with this neighborhood
UAV k ∈ K can stay and monitor the most areas a ∈ Au then
solution.
9: Find all the areas a corresponding to this space node
10: else Impose the release criterion to the neighborhood solu-
(i, r ) and the UAVs k that monitored these areas a, update the
tion.
status indicating that these areas have be monitored and set
11: end if
yirk = 1.
12: Update the tabu list T L.
10: end if
13: if the new current solution yn is better than the best known
11: end while
solution y∗ then 
12: if k∈K yirk > 1, i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H \{0} then
14: y∗ ← yn , and set u = 0.
13: Consider all cases for which yirk = 1 and set one such vari-
15: else set u = u + 1. 
able to one in order to make k∈K yirk ≤ 1.
16: end if
14: end if
17: if u > unc_max then
15: Update the last |A| elements of the sequence list SL.
18: Regenerate the current solution yn according to diversifi-
cation strategy and set u = 0.
19: else set u = u + 1.
20: end if • Neighborhood search strategy and tabu list
21: set n = n + 1.
If a monitoring area is not mapped with one space node, for the
22: end while
first |A| elements in the sequence list SL, we randomly choose one
23: Return y∗ .
of the space nodes that have not been chosen by the current solu-
tion. This choice is made from the set of space nodes that can sat-
isfy the accuracy requirement of the monitoring area to perform an
We first describe in Algorithm 1 the tabu search algorithm exchange with the current space node associated with it. The first
framework. |A| elements of the sequence list SL are then updated. One of the
We explain the algorithmic elements next. last |A| elements recording the index of UAVs, is randomly selected
to plus or minus one in order to change the UAV that monitors
• Solution representation and evaluation
an area. This number is plus one if the index is the smallest, and
The core variables yirk determining whether UAV k stops at it is minus one if the index is the largest. In addition, we need to
space node (i, r) to monitor are coded as follows. For the UAVs check the mapping among UAVs, monitoring areas and space nodes
routing problem with |A| monitoring areas, we use a sequence list according to Constraint (3) of the model and we update the last |A|
SL with 2|A| elements; the first |A| elements record the index of elements of the sequence list SL.
space nodes, and the last |A| elements record the index of UAVs. Tabu elements are set according to the neighborhood search
Then the variables yirk are known parameters and we solve the procedure. Elements of a solution induced by a move are assigned
mathematical model using CPLEX to obtain the value of variables a tabu status. A monitoring area a just chosen cannot be chosen
xirjsk (the traversal order of UAV) and its objective value. again while it is tabu. The two swapped space nodes (i, r) and (j,
The solution constrained by the yirk variables may be infeasible. s) that can satisfy the accuracy requirement of the same monitor-
As we mentioned previously, these variables determine at which ing area cannot be swapped again while they are tabu.
space nodes the UAV stops. It may happen that a UAV may stop at • Diversification strategy
too many space nodes and the solution will be infeasible because it
will violate the maximum flight time. This solution will not satisfy The current solution is regenerated to help avoid local optima
Constraint (9) and the algorithm will return a large positive num- if the best known objective value has not improved after a certain
ber as a penalty. Note that this positive number must be greater number of iterations. Several feasible solutions are generated ran-
than the value of the objective function associated with any feasi- domly, and the solution with the best objective value is selected
ble solution. as the current solution. The method applied to generate feasible
6 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11
Fig. 3. A case of generating an initial solution and neighborhood exchange.
solutions is the same as that used for the generation of the initial
solution, except for the steps in the do while loop, which are as
now follows: for an area a ∈ Au , randomly choose a space node (i,
r), i ∈ N\{0}, r ∈ H\{0} that can be monitored by UAV k. Then, find
all the areas a corresponding to this space node and the UAVs that
can monitor them; update the status indicating that these areas
have be monitored and set yirk = 1.
• Aspiration criterion
If a neighborhood solution is better than the best known solu-
tion, it is accepted as the initial solution for the next iteration and
replaces the best known solution.
• Release criterion
Elements of several solutions in the tabu list can be unblocked
with a certain probability.
Fig. 3 provides a simple example based on the scale of nine ar-
eas, 25 nodes and two UAVs to explain the coding of variables yirk
and the neighborhood search strategy. The detailed locations of the
areas and of the nodes can be seen in Fig. 7(a). In Fig. 3, the space
node corresponding to area 1 is (4,1). This means that a UAV can
stay at space node (4,1) to monitor area 1, which can satisfy area
1’s accuracy requirement. The relationship between the other areas
and their corresponding space nodes is the same as above.
6. Numerical experiments
In order to assess the effectiveness of the solution method, we
have performed extensive numerical experiments on small- (from
six areas to nine areas), medium- (from 12 areas to 20 areas), and
large-scale (from 36 areas to 81 areas) instances. We have used the
IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio 12.6.1 (Visual Studio 2015,
C#) on a DELL Precision 7600 workstation with two Xeon E5-2643
V3 CPUs (24 cores) of 3.4 GHz processing speed and 128 GB of
memory.
6.1. Parameter settings
For the flight heights, we distinguish between low, medium and
high levels, which correspond to high, medium and low monitoring
accuracies. The low flight height (50 m), the medium flight height
(100 m) and the high flight height (300 m) mean that the monitor-
ing scope of UAVs cover exactly one monitoring area (50 m2 ), four
monitoring areas (200 m2 ) and nine monitoring areas (450 m2 ),
respectively, as shown in Fig. 4. On small-scale instances, the flight
height of UAVs is set to low and medium levels; and on medium-
and large-scale instances, it is set to low, medium and high lev-
els, that is the set H of flight heights is {0, 1, 2, 3}. For the small-
scale instances involving six areas and eight areas, if the accuracy
demand of an area is the low accuracy level, the UAV will cover
all areas at the same time, which is not meaningful. Therefore, we
consider only low and medium levels for the small-scale instances.
We define several notations in Table 1 to explain how the two
parameters bair and tirjs are generated. For the setting of param-
eters bair , the accuracy requirements for each monitoring area a
are first generated randomly. The center node i ∈ Nc of each mon-
itoring area a corresponding to vertices j ∈ Nv is then determined.
Finally we select the maximum distance dij between nodes i ∈ N
and vertices j ∈ Nv of each monitoring area a, and compare it to
radii r1 , r2 , r3 of monitoring scopes with different monitoring lev-
els. If the accuracy requirement of the monitoring area a is high,
i.e., max {dij } < r1 , then this area to which vertices j ∈ Nv belong can
be covered by the monitoring scope of the UAV that stops at space
nodes (i, 1), and the parameter bai1 is set to 1. Similarly, we gener-
ate the values of the parameter bair under the other two monitor-
ing levels.
To set the parameters tirjs , we use the space distance between
two space nodes dirjs to measure the time consumption of UAVs
traveling from space node (i, r) and node (j, s). It is possible
that the displacements between space nodes (i1 , r1 ) and (j1 , s1 )
and space nodes (i2 , r2 ) and (j2 , s2 ) are equal, but the space an-
gles formed by these two pairs of space nodes may be differ-
ent, which means that the UAVs traveling from (i1 , r1 ) to (j1 , s1 )
and from (i2 , r2 ) to (j2 , s2 ) could spend unequal times. Therefore,
the different flight paths of UAVs between any two space nodes
should be considered as well. There are five flying modes: upward
flight, obliquely upward flight, downward flight, obliquely down-
ward flight, and level flight. The lift forces of UAVs during a flight
with the above five modes are illustrated in Fig. 5. Based on the
 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11 7

Fig. 4. Illustration of the relationship between monitoring scopes and monitoring areas.

Table 1
Definition of the auxiliary parameters.

Notation Definition

ma accuracy requirements of the monitoring areas

Nc set of all center nodes, Nc ∈ N
Nv set of all vertices, Nv ∈ N
la side length of a square monitoring area √ √ √
r1 , r2 , r3 radii of monitoring scopes that correspond to high, medium and low monitoring levels; r1 = 2/2la , r2 = 2la , r3 = 3 2/2la
dij planar distance from node i to node j
hrs height difference between space nodes (i, r) and (j, s)
dirjs distance from space nodes (i, r) to (j, s), dir js = (di j )2 + (hrs )2
G gravity met by a UAV during flight
f air resistance met by a UAV during flight; f < G
F lift force met by a UAV during flight

Fig. 5. Force analysis of UAVs during flight.

above analysis, the lift force of UAVs during flight can be calcu- • Case 4: obliquely downward flight
lated as follows:
• Case 1: upward flight

hrs 2 h
F = [G − f sin(arctan )] + [ f cos(arctan rs )]2
di j di j
i, j ∈ N, r, s ∈ H (18)
F =G+ f
(15) • Case 5: level flight

• Case 2: obliquely upward flight


F= G2 + f 2 .

hrs 2 h (19)
F = [G + f sin(arctan )] + [ f cos(arctan rs )]2
di j di j The greater is the required lift force of the UAV traversing from
i, j ∈ N, r, s ∈ H (16) space nodes (i, r) and (j, s), the longer is the time it spends (Fig. 6).
Thus, the required lift force of UAVs from space nodes (i, r) and (j,
• Case 3: downward flight s) is considered as the weight of the flight routing selection and
is used to measure the time consumption between any two space
nodes with the flight distance dirjs .
F =G− f In addition, in the tabu search procedure, the maximum it-
eration number iter_max is between 30 and 50, the maximum
(17)
number for which the best known solution has been unchanged
unc_max is 5, and the tabu length l is between 10 and 30.
8 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11
Fig. 6. Illustration of hrs , dij and dirjs .
6.2. Sensitivity analysis of maximum flight time
In reality, the monitoring tasks performed by the UAVs have dif-
ferent accuracy requirements. Accordingly, the UAVs need different
times to complete these tasks. Different maximum flight times for
the UAVs may lead to different flight routes and hence to different
durations. The way in which the route duration is influenced by
the maximum flight time of UAVs is worth discussing. We have
conducted a sensitivity analysis on the maximum flight time to
test its influence on the objective value and on the computation
needed to solve the model of Section 4, based on the instance in
Fig. 7.
In Table 2, the instance ID numbers (e.g., ‘9-24-3-2-1’) denote
the number of monitoring areas ‘9’, the number of nodes ‘24’, the
number of flight heights ‘3’, the number of UAVs ‘2’, and the in-
dex of the case ‘1’, respectively. We report the maximum flight
time T_max , the lower bound T_lb of T_max , the upper bound
T_ub of T_max , the objective values ‘Z’, the computation time ‘T’
and the number of UAVs enabled ‘No. UAVs enabled’. Here, T_max
Fig. 7. The instance of Section 6.2.
is computed as the convex combination p × T_ub + (1 − p) × T _lb,
with p ∈ {0.3, 0.5, 0.7}; p is the parameter of the convex combina-
tion. Intuitively, different maximum flight times will influence the
objective value and the computation time. Specifically, too tight
maximum flight time can mean that a feasible solution will not be
obtained within a reasonable time, for example, in instance ‘36-
85-4-2-1’, we cannot obtain a feasible solution within two hours
by using CPLEX or tabu search. In contrast, if the maximum flight
time is too loose, it will not be sufficiently constrainting, for exam-
ple, in instance ‘9-25-3-2-2’, ‘9-25-3-2-3’ and ‘16-41-4-2-3’, where
two UAVs are not fully used. Overall, the total route duration, the
flight route and the computation time are sensitive to the maxi-
mum flight time of UAVs. Therefore, we set the same maximum
flight time for each group of experiments and the same upper
bound of maximum flight time for all experiments of Section 6.3.
6.3. Performance of the proposed algorithmic strategy
The following numerical experiments on small- medium- large-
scale instances were performed by applying both CPLEX and tabu
search. The solution obtained by CPLEX is used for the comparison.
The results are shown inTables 3–5, where the objective values ‘Z’,
the computation time ‘T’, the gap of objective values ‘Obj gap’ and
the computation time ratio ‘Time ratio’ are provided. The instance
ID has the same meaning as in Section 6.2.
From Tables 3–5, we can observe that CPLEX can only solve
small-scale instances to optimality. When the number of UAVs in
the instances changes from one to two, the computation time in-
creases sharply with an average of over one hour, and the compu-
tation time of the instance ‘9-25-3-2-2’ is more than three hours.
For small-scale instances, the tabu search heuristic can also ob-
tain the optimal solutions, but it only takes an average of 19.82 s
of computation time. For 15 medium-scale instances and the first
two groups of large-scale instances, the feasible solutions obtained
by the proposed solution method are at least as good as the best
ones generated by CPLEX in over half of the cases. For some of
these instances, even if the feasible solutions by CPLEX are better
than those obtained by the proposed method, the average objective
 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11 9

Table 2
Sensitivity analysis of maximum flight time.

Instance ID p T_lb T_ub T _ max CPLEX Tabu search No. UAVs enabled

Zc Tc (s) Zt Tt

9-25-3-2-1 0.3 2370 3307.14 6919.72 3307.14 61.84 2

9-25-3-2-2 0.5 300 7200 3750 2953.52 13.86 2953.52 10.45 1
9-25-3-2-3 0.7 5130 2953.52 11.14 2953.52 10.26 1
16-41-4-2-1 0.3 30 0 0 4942.61 720 0.0 0 5018.29 1875.04 2
16-41-4-2-2 0.5 1200 7200 4200 4605.32 2392.12 4637.59 967.65 2
16-41-4-2-3 0.7 5400 4438.46 51.40 4438.46 2.36 1
36-85-4-2-1 0.3 3840 N.A. – N.A. – –
36-85-4-2-2 0.5 2400 7200 4800 6999.18 720 0.0 0 7143.52 4224.52 2
36-85-4-2-3 0.7 5760 7236.90 720 0.0 0 7143.52 3805.76 2

Notes: (i) T_max = p × T _ub + (1 − p) × T _lb; (ii) ‘Zc ’ is the solution obtained by CPLEX; ‘Zt ’ is the global best solution
obtained by the tabu search algorithm; (iii) ‘Tc ’ is the CPLEX running time in seconds, ‘Tt ’ is the tabu search running time
in seconds; (iv) ‘N.A.’ means the solution cannot be obtained within 7200 s; (vi) ‘Zc ’ of instance ‘16-41-4-2-1’, ‘36-85-4-
2-2’ and ‘36-85-4-2-3’ is the solution obtained in 7200 s.

Table 3
Performance of the tabu search metaheuristic for small-scale instances.

Instances CPLEX Tabu search Time ratio

Scale ID Zc Tc (s) Zi Zt GAPit (%) Tt (s) Tt /Tc

Six areas 6-18-3-1-1 1378.33 4.32 1471.59 1378.33 6.338% 0.41 0.094
and 54 6-18-3-1-2 1627.60 4.64 1631.15 1627.60 0.218% 1.59 0.342
space nodes 6-18-3-1-3 1631.15 0.84 1725.11 1631.15 5.447% 0.34 0.405
6-18-3-1-4 1891.54 6.65 1895.09 1891.54 0.187% 1.73 0.260
6-18-3-1-5 1934.73 3.01 1989.05 1934.73 2.731% 1.27 0.422
Eight areas 8-23-3-1-1 2556.18 5.97 2610.50 2556.18 2.081% 2.03 0.340
and 69 8-23-3-1-2 1937.00 10.44 2280.76 1937.00 15.072% 4.20 0.402
space nodes 8-23-3-1-3 2450.86 8.26 2544.13 2450.86 3.666% 4.96 0.600
8-23-3-1-4 2200.36 7.03 2280.76 2200.36 3.525% 3.61 0.450
8-23-3-1-5 2454.26 8.03 2548.05 2454.26 3.680% 3.29 0.410
Nine areas 9-25-3-2-1 2624.14 4473.31 2941.26 2624.14 10.782% 78.59 0.018
and 75 9-25-3-2-2 3049.35 17382.44 3339.55 3049.35 8.690% 85.71 0.005
space nodes 9-25-3-2-3 2717.90 2082.75 2879.18 2717.90 5.601% 50.30 0.024
9-25-3-2-4 3192.73 4240.91 3507.81 3192.73 8.982% 13.66 0.003
9-25-3-2-5 3247.96 4572.59 3536.25 3247.96 8.152% 46.11 0.010
Average 2184.53 5.677% 19.82 0.009

Notes: (i) ‘Zc ’ is the optimal solution obtained by CPLEX; ‘Zi ’ is the initial solution obtained by the tabu search
algorithm; ‘Zt ’ is the global best solution obtained by the tabu search algorithm; (ii) ‘Tc ’ is the CPLEX running time
in seconds, ‘Tt ’ is the tabu search running time in seconds; (iii) GAPit = (Zi − Zt )/Zt ; (iv) T ime ratio = Tt /Tc .

Table 4
Performance of the tabu search metaheuristic for medium-scale instances.

Instances CPLEX Tabu search Obj gap

Scale ID Zf Zi Zt GAPit (%) Tt (s) GAPtf (%) GAPft (%)

12 areas 12-32-4-2-1 3678.18 3927.79 3674.77 6.442% 328.69 ࢨ 0.093%

and 128 12-32-4-2-2 3521.91 3843.58 3490.75 9.180% 462.61 ࢨ 0.893%
space nodes 12-32-4-2-3 3293.79 3545.10 3293.79 7.089% 332.57 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
12-32-4-2-4 3535.02 3843.58 3535.02 8.028% 589.23 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
12-32-4-2-5 3042.11 3369.91 3042.11 9.727% 482.23 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
16 areas 16-41-4-2-1 3745.72 4212.21 3745.72 11.075% 1148.59 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
and 164 16-41-4-2-2 4016.44 4638.81 4021.17 13.315% 869.51 0.118% ࢨ
space nodes 16-41-4-2-3 3942.47 4195.49 3942.68 6.026% 832.82 0.005% ࢨ
16-41-4-2-4 4605.29 5380.52 4608.72 14.344% 1111.61 0.074% ࢨ
16-41-4-2-5 4498.83 5059.16 4495.80 11.135% 766.93 ࢨ 0.067%
20 areas 20-50-4-2-1 5935.39 6463.56 5817.84 9.990% 2019.73 ࢨ 2.021%
and 200 20-50-4-2-2 4449.53 5671.62 4462.19 21.324% 2134.33 0.285% ࢨ
space nodes 20-50-4-2-3 5070.44 5767.87 5096.35 11.642% 2640.24 0.511% ࢨ
20-50-4-2-4 5388.98 5771.07 5384.82 6.693% 1489.47 ࢨ 0.077%
20-50-4-2-5 4287.27 5130.17 4289.21 16.392% 2450.68 0.045% ࢨ
Average 10.827% 1177.28 0.104% 0.350%

Notes: (i) ‘Zf ’ is the feasible solution obtained by CPLEX in 7200 s; (ii) GAPt f = (Zt − Z f )/Z f , GAPf t = (Z f − Zt )/Zt ; (iii)
‘ࢨ’ means the value is negative.

gap between them is within one percent. On large-scale instances
where CPLEX cannot obtain feasible solutions, our tabu search
metaheuristic can provide feasible solutions within three hours. In
addition, the average gap between the initial objective values and
the global best objective values of tabu search among all instances
is 8.585%, which means that the tailored heuristic for generating
initial solutions and the tabu search strategy are both efficient.
To sum up, our tests suggest that the proposed solution method
is appropriate for solving the formulated model and has a definite
10 L. Zhen, M. Li and G. Laporte et al. / Computers and Operations Research 105 (2019) 1–11

Table 5
Performance of the tabu search metaheuristic for large-scale instances.

Instances CPLEX Tabu search Obj gap

Scale ID Zf Zi Zt GAPit (%) Tt (s) GAPtf (%) GAPft (%)

36 areas 36-85-4-2-1 8927.95 9284.87 8771.45 5.853% 3717.17 ࢨ 1.784%

and 340 36-85-4-2-2 6376.44 6758.33 6336.73 6.659% 4237.01 ࢨ 0.632%
space nodes 36-85-4-2-3 7597.73 8588.96 7597.73 13.046% 3863.69 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
36-85-4-2-4 7734.31 8590.02 7723.16 11.224% 3430.07 ࢨ 0.144%
36-85-4-2-5 7706.90 8388.84 7706.90 8.849% 4387.99 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
64 areas 64-145-4-2-1 13294.27 14978.76 13557.89 10.480% 6475.82 1.983% ࢨ
and 580 64-145-4-2-2 13864.48 14363.47 12970.08 10.743% 6098.18 ࢨ 6.896%
space nodes 64-145-4-2-3 13960.55 14753.34 14006.22 5.334% 6128.70 0.327% ࢨ
64-145-4-2-4 15455.08 16989.77 15455.08 9.930% 5888.28 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
64-145-4-2-5 14687.20 16592.13 14687.20 12.970% 5751.95 0.0 0 0% 0.0 0 0%
81 areas 81-181-4-3-1 N.A. 20958.09 19601.66 6.920% 9503.18 - -
and 724 81-181-4-3-2 N.A. 18638.92 17731.09 5.120% 8743.50 - -
space nodes 81-181-4-3-3 N.A. 22371.88 19960.64 12.080% 9039.80 - -
81-181-4-3-4 N.A. 19163.78 17416.87 10.030% 9904.12 - -
81-181-4-3-5 N.A. 20082.60 18336.93 9.520% 9209.13 - -
Average 9.251% 6425.24 0.385% 1.182%

Notes: (i) ‘N.A.’ means the solution cannot be obtained within 7200 s.

advantage over CPLEX in terms of computation time. Moreover, in Acknowledgments

contrast to CPLEX, it always yields a feasible solution.
7. Conclusions
Motivated by the increasing use of UAVs to perform monitoring
tasks both in the military and civilian areas, we have introduced a
new UAV routing problem that considers the height at which the
nodes are visited. The problem was formulated as an integer lin-
ear programming model in order to minimize the total duration
needed by all UAVs for monitoring a set of areas with given ac-
curacy requirements, and without exceeding the maximum flight
time of each UAV. While CPLEX can solve the model for small-scale
instances, we had to develop a tabu search metaheuristic for the
solution of medium- and large-scale instances. Extensive numerical
experiments were conducted on several families of instances. Our
results demonstrate that the proposed tabu search metaheuristic
has a good solution efficiency and always yields a feasible solution.
When instance size grows, its relative advantage compared with
CPLEX becomes more significant. The model and the algorithm de-
veloped in this paper can pave the way for the development of
effective decision support systems for the routing and scheduling
of UAVs that must perform monitoring tasks.
This work constitutes a starting point to the study of a new
UAV routing problem. There is a certain gap between the problem
we proposed and a realistic UAV monitoring application. The model
formulated for the problem in this paper considered a static sce-
nario, the velocity of UAVs was assumed to be constant, whereas in
reality the velocity of UAVs varies according to different altitudes.
In addition, the objective function used in this paper was the min-
imization of the total time required to perform all tasks of UAVs.
However, minimizing the number of UAVs and other practical fac-
tors should be taken into account in UAV monitoring applications.
Future work will be devoted to extending the model from a
static scenario to a dynamic scenario in order to be closer to prac-
tical applications. In a dynamic scenario, the UAV velocity is not
constant. As a result, the enhanced model will consider the energy
consumption of each UAV. The problem we have addressed in this
work was formulated as a single-objective optimization model. We
will consider adding other objective functions which are the mini-
mization of the number of UAVs and the maximization of average
monitoring satisfaction. In this context, each area is assigned a soft
time window and the time at which a UAV starts monitoring an
area can be used to measure satisfaction.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China [grant numbers 71831008, 71671107, 71422007]
and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Coun-
cil [grant number 2015-06189]. Thanks are due to the reviewers for
their valuable comments.
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