Robotics (Oct 2017)

A High-Fidelity Energy Efficient Path Planner for Unmanned Airships

  • Steven Recoskie,
  • Eric Lanteigne,
  • Wail Gueaieb

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics6040028
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 4
p. 28

Abstract

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This paper presents a comparative study on the effects of grid resolution, vehicle velocity, and wind vector fields on the trajectory planning of unmanned airships. A wavefront expansion trajectory planner that minimizes a multi-objective cost function consisting of flight time, energy consumption, and collision avoidance while respecting the differential constraints of the vehicle is presented. Trajectories are generated using a variety of test environments and flight conditions to demonstrate that the inclusion of a high terrain map resolution, a temporal vehicle velocity, and a spatial wind vector field yields significant improvements in trajectory feasibility and energy economy when compared to trajectories generated using only two of these three elements.

Keywords