A Simulation of UAV Power Optimization via Reinforcement Learning

This paper demonstrates a reinforcement learning approach to the optimization of power consumption in a UAV system in a simplified data collection task. Here, the architecture consists of two common reinforcement learning algorithms, Q-learning and Sarsa, which are implemented through a combination of robot operating system (ROS) and Gazebo. The effect of wind as an influential factor was simulated. The implemented algorithm resulted in reasonable adjustment of UAV actions to the wind field in order to minimize its power consumption during task completion over the domain.