UAV Swarm Deployment and Trajectory for 3D Area Coverage via Reinforcement Learning

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are recognized as promising technologies for area coverage due to the flexibility and adaptability. However, the ability of a single UAV is limited, and as for the large-scale three-dimensional (3D) scenario, UAV swarms can establish seamless wireless communication services. Hence, in this work, we consider a scenario of UAV swarm deployment and trajectory to satisfy 3D coverage considering the effects of obstacles. In detail, we propose a hierarchical swarm framework to efficiently serve the large-area users. Then, the problem is formulated to minimize the total trajectory loss of the UAV swarm. However, the problem is intractable due to the non-convex property, and we decompose it into smaller issues of users clustering, UAV swarm hovering points selection, and swarm trajectory determination. Moreover, we design a Q-learning based algorithm to accelerate the solution efficiency. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations to verify the proposed mechanisms, and the designed algorithm outperforms other referred methods.

Similarity Grouping-Guided Neural Network Modeling for Maritime Time Series Prediction

Reliable and accurate prediction of time series plays a crucial role in maritime industry, such as economic investment, transportation planning, port planning and design, etc. The dynamic growth of maritime time series has the predominantly complex, nonlinear and non-stationary properties. To guarantee high-quality prediction performance, we propose to first adopt the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and ensemble EMD (EEMD) methods to decompose the original time series into high- and low-frequency components. The low-frequency components can be easily predicted directly through traditional neural network (NN) methods. It is more difficult to predict high-frequency components due to their properties of weak mathematical regularity. To take advantage of the inherent self-similarities within high-frequency components, these components will be divided into several continuous small (overlapping) segments. The grouped segments with high similarities are then selected to form more proper training datasets for traditional NN methods. This regrouping strategy can assist in enhancing the prediction accuracy of high-frequency components. The final prediction result is obtained by integrating the predicted high- and low-frequency components. Our proposed three-step prediction frameworks benefit from the time series decomposition and similar segments grouping. Experiments on both port cargo throughput and vessel traffic flow have illustrated its superior performance in terms of prediction accuracy and robustness.