The Collaborative Power Inspection Task Allocation Method of “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Operating Vehicle”

In order to overcome the short battery life and poor long-distance maneuverability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in power inspection operations, some provincial and municipal power companies promote a new mode of “UAV and operating vehicle (OV)” collaborative power inspection. This paper investigates into the actual problems in the cooperative inspection operations of the OV and multi-UAVs, and proposes a model of task allocation for the cooperative inspections of the OV and multi-UAVs, which includes four sub-problems: the division of a single operation circle, the location of parking spots, multi-UAVs task allocation, and the path planning of OV. The proposed model is solved by using improved K-means algorithm and genetic algorithm, and case analysis is carried out. The calculation results show that the model of task allocation for cooperative inspections proposed in this paper is practical and feasible, which can provide theoretical guidance for actual power inspections.