For a fixed-wing aircraft with bounded turning radius, find a
shortest closed path which visits at least one point in each of a set
of volumes. Each volume corresponds to the set of points in airspace
from which the aircraft can adequately photograph a site of
interest. For example, in the case of search & rescue, sites of
interest may be a missing aircraft's potential crash sites identified
in low-resolution satellite imagery.
Solution
Use a genetic algorithm as described [ here
]. The videos below show the best solution in a population as it
evolves over 500 generations.