Abstract:

Inspired by the general tau theory in animal motion planning, a collision-free four-dimensional (4D) trajectory generation method is presented for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This method can generate a group of optimal or near-optimal collision-free 4D trajectories, the position and velocity of which are synchronously planned in accordance with the arrival time. To enlarge the shape adjustment capability of trajectories with zero initial acceleration, a new strategy named intrinsic tau harmonic guidance strategy is proposed on the basis of general tau theory and harmonic motion. In the case of multiple UAVs, the 4D trajectories generated by the new strategy are optimized by the bionic Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. In order to ensure flight safety, the protected airspace zone is used for collision detection, and two collision resolution approaches are applied to resolve the remaining conflicts after global trajectory optimization. Numerous simulation results of the simultaneous arrival missions demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively provide more flyable and safer 4D trajectories than that of the existing methods.

Key words: bio-inspired, 4D trajectory generation, general tau theory, multiple UAVs