Implementing Dubins Airplane Paths on Fixed-Wing UAVs*

Abstract

A well-known path-planning technique for mobile robots or planar aerial vehicles is to use Dubins paths, which are minimum-distance paths between two configurations subject to the constraints of the Dubins car model. An extension of this method to a three-dimensional Dubins airplane model has recently been proposed. This chapter builds on that work showing a complete architecture for implementing Dubins airplane paths on small fixed-wing UAVs. The existing Dubins airplane model is modified to be more consistent with the kinematics of a fixed-wing aircraft. The chapter then shows how a recently proposed vector-field method can be used to design a guidance law that causes the Dubins airplane model to follow straight-line and helical paths. Dubins airplane paths are more complicated than Dubins car paths because of the altitude component. Based on the difference between the altitude of the start and end configurations, Dubins airplane paths can be classified as low, medium, or high altitude gain. While for medium and high altitude gain there are many different Dubins airplane paths, this chapter proposes selecting the path that maximizes the average altitude throughout the maneuver. The proposed architecture is implemented on a six degree-of-freedom Matlab/Simulink simulation of an Aerosonde UAV, and results from this simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique.

The classification of homotopy classes of bounded curvature paths

“…Bounded curvature paths have proven to be extremely useful in applications since a bound on the curvature is a turning circle constraint for the trajectory of wheeled robots (and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [14,19,25]) along paths. Applications can be found in computer science [1,5,8,11,15,21], control theory [7,13,16,17,18,20,22,23] and engineering [3,4,6,14,19,25].…”

“…Applications can be found in computer science [1,5,8,11,15,21], control theory [7,13,16,17,18,20,22,23] and engineering [3,4,6,14,19,25].…”

Optimization of Pesticide Spraying Tasks via Multi-UAVs Using Genetic Algorithm

“…However, for UAV task allocation problems, due to the constraints of the UAV's kinematic constraints, the distance between targets visited by UAVs is no longer Euclidean distance but rather Dubins path length. The Dubins path is a feasible trajectory of the minimum length over a bounded curvature trajectory at a constant rate [29], and it has been widely used in the field of UAV trajectory planning [5,[30][31][32]. In addition, for multi-UAV pesticide spraying assignment problems, due to the many possible points for UAVs to enter and exit the farmland, there are multiple Dubins paths between farmlands.…”

“…For example, Figure 3 describes a UAV's flight trajectory between farmlands under the kinematic constraints. According to the generating principle of a Dubins path [31], the UAV starts from 6 of , turns right (denoted by R), and flies along the arc path and then along a straight linear path (denoted by S), and finally turns left (denoted by L) and takes the arc flight path to arrive at 1 of . Owing to the back-and-forth path strategy used inside the farmland, the angles of the UAV entering or leaving the farmland must be perpendicular to the edge of the farmland.…”

A Fixed Wing UAV Path Planning Algorithm Based On Genetic Algorithm and Dubins Curve Theory

“…In [20], Wilburn et al proposed a complete algorithm for producing a Dubins path in 3D environment through a set of 2 poses. In [21], Beard et al proposed a method that extended the Dubins car model into a Dubins airplane model by adding a flight-path angle to the Dubins car path. The Dubins airplane path between two waypoints consists of helical and straight-line paths.…”