Flying over The Uncertain Nature (FORTUNE): Intelligent and Humanistic 3D Path Planning for Low-Altitude Collaboration

Abstract:The proliferation of low-altitude intelligent agents is increasing the demand for timely and socially responsible collaborative sensing in dynamic urban environments. However, jointly addressing heterogeneous spatiotemporal demands, environmental uncertainty, and human-centered operational constraints remains challenging. This paper studies 3D multi-UAV path planning and task assignment under uncertain ground PoI demands. Unlike existing work assuming static and fully known PoIs, we model persistent, temporally predictable, and emergent demands within a unified framework. We further incorporate altitude-dependent societal and environmental costs, including noise exposure and public safety risks, to balance sensing performance with socially compliant operations. To solve the resulting large-scale mixed-integer nonlinear problem, we propose FORTUNE, a hierarchical offline-online framework. Offline, a Transformer predicts Type-II PoI activation windows, while an enhanced sparrow search algorithm generates coordinated flight plans through priority-aware decoding and danger-aware evolution. Online, a lightweight refinement module accommodates emerging Type-III PoIs while preserving global mission coherence. Experiments on real-world traffic data and synthetic scenarios show that FORTUNE consistently outperforms state-of-the-art methods in effectiveness, scalability, and practical applicability.

Robotics (cs.RO); Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)

arXiv:2608.03408 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2608.03408v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.03408 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.