Regional surveillance of disjoint rectangles: a travelling salesman formulation

Mission planning for surveillance coverage is of both practical and theoretical interest. In brief, regional surveillance involves planning the search of certain given regions in the minimum possible time. The surveillance problem can therefore be described as a variant of the classical travelling salesman problem. The uniqueness of the problem lies in the different allowed entry and exit points. Additionally, the mission schedule has to ensure the probability of target detection must not be compromised. From the practical perspective, any reduction in travelling time provides immediate cost savings to the defence department. A dynamic programming formulation is derived for the regional surveillance problem. An example is included to illustrate the methodology.