Algorithms for Localization and Routing of Unmanned Vehicles in GPS-Denied Environments

A majority of the routing algorithms for unmanned aerial or ground vehicles rely on Global Positioning System (GPS) information for localization. However, disruption of GPS signals, by intention or otherwise, can render these algorithms ineffective. This article provides a way to address this issue by utilizing landmarks to aid localization in GPS-denied environments. Specifically, given a number of vehicles and a set of targets, we formulate a joint routing and landmark placement problem as a combinatorial optimization problem: to compute paths for the vehicles that traverse every target at least once, and to place landmarks to aid the vehicles in localization while each of them traverses its route, such that the sum of the traveling cost and the landmark placement cost is minimized. A mixed-integer linear program is presented, and a set of algorithms and heuristics are proposed for different approaches to address certain issues not covered by the linear program. The performance of each proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared through extensive computational and simulation results.