Barrier Coverage of a Non-Planar Terrain-Like Border with UAVs

Intrusion detection is a critical application in UAV networks with downward-facing cameras, where the barrier coverage problem entails strategically positioning UAVs to protect a region's perimeter. For a terrain-like border, achieving optimal UAV placement is challenging due to factors like resolution, overlap constraints, and varying altitudes across the terrain that have not been explored in previous studies. This paper addresses the barrier coverage problem in the context of a terrain-like border using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). We first simplify the 3D problem into an equivalent 2D model and introduce a resolution cost to evaluate the quality of terrain coverage. We also define the overlapping length and formulate an optimization problem to ensure barrier coverage for an initially uncovered belt. Our approach is validated through several example simulations.