Towards beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) risk-aware UAV path planning: ensuring swarm safety, obstacle avoidance and ground crash risk mitigation

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School of Electrical Engineering | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2026-01-07
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Authors

Date

2025

Department

Informaatio- ja tietoliikennetekniikan laitos
Department of Information and Communications Engineering

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

127 + app. 63

Series

Aalto University publication series Doctoral Theses, 7/2026

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), recognized for their cost effectiveness, computing capabilities, mobility and connectivity, have advanced significantly, attracting interest from both academia and industry despite their inherent energy limitations. Recent advancements in network technologies, such as 5G network, have enabled Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC), supporting the shift from Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) to Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. This shift has expanded UAV applications across various fields, including irrigation, environmental monitoring, urban transportation, package delivery and aerial surveillance, whether deployed as individual units or swarms. However, as UAV applications increase, their navigation environments become more dynamic and prone to risks. The main goal of this dissertation is to contribute to enhancing UAV path planning for navigation in BVLOS mode. The contributions fall into three main research areas: first, enabling real-time path planning for UAV swarms in an obstacle-free environment while ensuring collision avoidance among swarm members; second, enabling autonomous path planning in complex environments, avoiding collisions with both static and mobile obstacles; and third, leveraging 5G-exposed population density data to mitigate the risk of crashing on the ground for UAVs navigating in populated environments. The proposed approaches are validated through simulations and performance evaluations, demonstrating their effectiveness.

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Supervising professor

Jäntti, Riku, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Information and Communications Engineering, Finland

Thesis advisor

Jäntti, Riku, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Information and Communications Engineering, Finland

Keywords

unmanned aerial vehicles, path planning, risk mitigation

Other note

Parts

  • [Publication 1]: S. Ouahouah, J. Prados-Garzon, T. Taleb and C. Benzaid. Energy and Delay Aware Physical Collision Avoidance in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, pp. 1-7, Dec 2018.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201904022450
    DOI: 10.1109/GLOCOM.2018.8647223 View at publisher
  • [Publication 2]: S. Ouahouah, J. Prados-Garzon, T. Taleb and C. Benzaid. Energy-aware Collision Avoidance stochastic Optimizer for a UAVs set. In IEEE International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (IWCMC), Limassol, Cyprus, pp. 1636-1641, June 2020.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202009045288
    DOI: 10.1109/IWCMC48107.2020.9148495 View at publisher
  • [Publication 3]: S. Ouahouah, M. Bagaa, J. Prados-Garzon and T. Taleb. Deep-Reinforcement-Learning-Based Collision Avoidance in UAV Environment. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 4015-4030, March 2022.
    DOI: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3118949 View at publisher
  • [Publication 4]: S. Ouahouah, M. Bagaa, R. Jäntti and R. Boutaba. Reinforcement Learning based Collision Avoidance and IoT Tasks Achievement in UAV Environment. (submitted), pp. 1-14, 2024.
  • [Publication 5]: M. Harchaoui, S. Ouahouah, O. Bekkouche, M. Bagaa and D. Abir. 5G-based Ground Risk Mitigation for UAVs: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach . In IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Cape Town, South Africa, pp. 1539-1544, Dec 2024.
    DOI: 10.1109/GLOBECOM52923.2024.10901435 View at publisher
  • [Publication 6]: S. Ouahouah, M. Harchaoui, O. Bekkouche, M. Bagaa and R. Jäntti. 5G-based Autonomous Ground Risk Mitigation for UAVs. (accepted). In IEEE International Conference on Communication (ICC), Montreal, Canada, pp. 1-6, June 2025.
    DOI: 10.1109/ICC52391.2025.11160843 View at publisher

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https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-2902-1

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[diss] Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu / ELEC