A flight time approximation model for unmanned aerial vehicles: Estimating the effects of path variations and wind

Determining a large number of flight time approximations for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a real-time scenario is a necessity of mission planning and dynamic resource management problems. Combining the idealized flight kinematics of a UAV along with a Dubins' vehicle assumption and the coordinates of a set of three waypoints provides the basis of the flight time approximations in our solution. This requires the assumptions of constant altitude in a 2D planar field and a UAV airspeed hold. Using these approximations allows for a more accurate approximation than the traditional approach of assuming straight-line distances and flight times. Considering a set of surveillance tasks in order to achieve a mission goal gives the model a higher level of accuracy by realizing increases or decreases in flight time due to flight path variations. Modeling the effects of head and tailwinds on the fuel consumption rate allows the resource management models to have an accurate account of the range of the UAV at each waypoint. Running a test case of 10 waypoints of varying task types containing 720 combinations of flight time approximations and fuel consumption rates produced the approximation database in 0.334 seconds. The fast computation time enables incorporating this model into applications needing data in real-time such as dynamic resource management problems.