Waypoint Navigation of Small-Scale UAV incorporating Dynamic Soaring

Abstract

The latest attempts at improving small scale autonomously guided Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have concentrated around the increase of range and speed. One of these ways is to incorporate dynamic slope soaring manoeuvres as part of the flight path. This is in contrast to most conventional path-planning algorithms where waypoint guidance is merged with terrain avoidance or contour following capability. Additionally, current trajectory optimization techniques are iterative and so have a considerable computational load. The proposed algorithm is based on Dubin's curves, and is therefore optimal by definition. Being non-iterative, it is comparatively a more efficient algorithm. Hence, a key advantage of the proposed technique is that the desired trajectory is generated quickly in real time with minimum computational load while satisfying the spatial constraints of dynamic slope soaring.K E Y W O R D S 1. dynamic soaring.2. path planning algorithm. 3. Dubin's curve. 4. differential geometry.

Energy extraction from wind shear: Reviews of dynamic soaring

“…4,73 The numerical simulation results about high-speed and long-endurance unpowered flights are encouraging for this idea. 31,33 However, the optimal solutions may not be achievable in practice yet, since the autonomous pilot about the UAV for dynamic soaring have not been developed until now.…”

“…For equations (4) to (6), because the airspeed-frame of UAV is a noninertial frame relative to the windframe when UAV is flying in wind shear, there is a Simultaneous exploration and exploitation of a wind field with limited prior information.…”

“…3 The trend for UAVs' technological development has been towards versatility, small size, long endurance coupled with high speed. 4 However, the major handicap associated with UAVs is the limited on-board energy capacity, 5,6 and the energy supplement has already been the crucial constraint for the development of UAVs, because it does affect UAVs' working duration and mission completion. The energy of UAVs is usually supplied by the onboard batteries, these years, although many institutions and scientists have dedicated great efforts to the research of battery technologies, UAVs still suffer from on-board energy storage limited in size and weight.…”

Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Accuracy Evaluation for Three Different Path-Tracking Algorithms

“…For this reason, we need to pay more attention to flight path accuracy. In papers by Stojcsics (2014), Ariff and Go (2011), Capello et al (2017), ideas of calculating flight path or cross track error is proposed, but not much attention is paid to look at the flight path error tendencies. In some of the papers, we can find that different track change algorithms could be used.…”

Dubins Waypoint Navigation of Small-Class Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…WN employing Dubins paths has been studied considerably. Ariff and Go conducted a thorough examination of the dynamics involved in WN with a focus on dynamic soaring algorithms [3]. Goerzen, Kong, and Mettler made rigorous comparisons between different path planning algorithms for unmanned vehicle navigation and identified advantages and disadvantages [4].…”