Optimal Trajectory Planning for an Unmanned Helicopter: Bifurcations in the Presence of Obstacles

Overview

Objectives/Goals The main objective is to create a computer program that is capable of guiding an unmanned helicopter from point A to point B in minimum time without hitting the obstacles between them. Methods/Materials Different MATLAB programs are developed and validated to enable the critical capability of obstacle avoidance in the nonlinear optimal trajectory planning of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) helicopter, named HeLion. Numerical simulations are performed to explore and discover the characteristics of the bifurcations in the presence of obstacles. The materials and software used in my project are as follows: a Window 7 based desktop PC; a UAV helicopter nonlinear dynamic model; a Pseudo-Spectral (PS) optimization package; a p-norm based mathematical model for obstacle avoidance; a student version of MATLAB. Results The results illustrate that the obstacle configuration plays a key role in determining the verifiable optimal trajectory, such as flying over or around obstacles, for the UAV helicopter - HeLion flying between Point A and B in an obstacle-rich environment. An innovative procedure designed and implemented in this project, to iteratively search for a bifurcation point (BP) in the presence of an obstacle is quite accurate. The procedure also significantly reduces the computational requirement to find the additional BPs when one needs to study the impact of various obstacle configurations on bifurcations. Conclusions/Discussion Based on hundreds of simulations, I conclude that the new-created computer program, using the 'inequality state constraints' of a p-norm based mathematical obstacle avoidance model, is an accurate and efficient tool for off-line UAV helicopter optimal trajectory planning with the critical capability of obstacle avoidance. The benefits from this research include but not limited to the following: (1) enabling the critical capability of the 'obstacle avoidance' for HeLion optimal trajectory planning, (2) providing a tool for the validation of the efficiency of future autopilot designs adding samples to the collection of HeLion's optimal trajectories, (3) applying the knowledge obtained from this research to optimal trajectory planning of UAVs other than HeLion.

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Mathematics & Software · Entry S1428

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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