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A new method for positioning a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that collect data from seismic modules via wireless communication is proposed.

The developed method of positioning a group of UAVs includes five main stages: constructing a heat map of Wi-Fi signal propagation, identifying points of maximum signal strength on the heat map, optimal target distribution between UAVs in the group, constructing optimal trajectories considering the complexity of the terrain and resolving conflict situations. The proposed algorithms were implemented programmatically in the ROS2 system in C++, then their operation was simulated in the Gazebo simulation environment.

Simulation of flights of a group of 4, 7 and 10 UAVs in areas of 5 × 5 and 10 × 10 sq km with the presence of 60 and 180 peaks respectively with a height from −50 to −63 dBm, using the developed method made it possible to solve the problem of collecting data from seismic sensors via a wireless communication channel in 34, 18 and 11 min for each group in 5 × 5 area and 83, 37, 32 min for 10 × 10 area. The comparison with other methods showed scalability and performance improvements by an average of 6–18%, depending on the number of UAVs in the group.

The main advantage of this method is the formation of global reciprocating trajectories of a group of UAVs, covering the coordinates of all seismic sensors in the minimum possible time and the iterative construction of local reciprocating trajectories in the process of flying around each sensor.