Reactive collision avoidance of multiple realistic UAVs

Abstract

Purpose -Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have a wide variety of applications such as surveillance and search. Many of these tasks are better executed by multiple UAVs acting as a group. One of the main problems to be tackled in a high-density UAV traffic scenario is that of collision avoidance among UAVs. The purpose of this paper is to give a collision avoidance algorithm to detect and resolve the conflicts of projected path among UAVs. Design/methodology/approach -The collision avoidance algorithm developed in the paper handles multiple UAV conflicts by considering only the most imminent predicted collision and doing a maneuver to increase the line-of-sight rate to avoid that conflict. After the collision avoidance maneuver, the UAVs fly to their destinations via Dubins shortest path to minimize time to reach destination. The algorithm is tested on realistic six degree of freedom UAV models augmented with proportional-integral controllers to hold altitude, velocity, and commanded bank angles. Findings -The paper shows, through extensive simulations, that the proposed collision avoidance algorithm gives a good performance in high-density UAV traffic scenarios. The proposed collision avoidance algorithm is simple to implement and is computationally efficient. Practical implications -The algorithm developed in this paper can be easily implemented on actual UAVs. Originality/value -There are only a few works in the literature that address multiple UAV collision avoidance in very high-density traffic situations. This paper addresses very high-density multiple UAV conflict resolution with realistic UAV models.

Using collision cones to assess biological deconfliction methods

“…Prescribed manoeuvres, e.g. always turn left, and force field methods, in which goals and obstacles are treated as oppositely and similarly charged particles, have been shown to work, but can become prohibitively complex for a large number of vehicles [ 13 , 14 ]. Optimization methods seek to find the best collision-free path with respect to some cost function.…”

A Dynamic Navigation Model for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and an Application to Autonomous Front-On Environmental Sensing and Photography Using Low-Cost Sensor Systems

“…Dynamic waypoint navigation capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are considered an important component of UAS use in environmental sensing [ 1 ]. This is especially true in operating environments where the obstacles or objects of interest exhibit non-deterministic dynamics [ 2 ]. These characteristics are more common for real-world objects than the static types that can be handled using a priori information and static waypoint navigation capabilities [ 1 ].…”

AI-based adaptive control and design of autopilot system for nonlinear UAV

“…In recent years, due to successful implementation of UAVs may be observed in military and the wide range of applications such as monitoring of traffic, crops and pollutions, crime and border surveillance; reconnaissance, coast guard, fisheries and environment protection, security of national assets, transport and communications, etc. UAVs significantly reduce the cost and risk to human life mainly in nuclear or chemical leakage inspection and are preferred in dull, dirty or dangerous for manned aerial vehicle missions (Manathara & Debasish 2011;Kurnaz et al 2009;Chao et al 2010;Orsag et al 2011;Gu et al 2006;Bateman et al 2011;Shiau & Ma 2009).…”