Journal article
Distributed Motion Planning for Multiple Quadrotors in Presence of Wind Gusts
DRONES, v 7(1), 58
Jan 2023
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
This work demonstrates distributed motion planning for multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle in a windy outdoor environment. The motion planning is modeled as a receding horizon mixed integer nonlinear programming (RH-MINLP) problem. Each quadrotor solves an RH-MINLP to generate its time-optimal speed profile along a minimum snap spline path while satisfying constraints on kinematics, dynamics, communication connectivity, and collision avoidance. The presence of wind disturbances causes the motion planner to continuously regenerate new motion plans, thereby significantly increasing the computational time and possibly leading to safety violations. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are used for assist in collision avoidance in the face of wind disturbances while alleviating the need to recalculate the motion plans continually. The RH-MINLPs are solved using a novel combination of heuristic and optimal methods, namely Simulated Annealing and interior-point methods, respectively, to handle discrete variables and nonlinearities in real-time feasibly. The framework is validated in simulations featuring up to 50 quadrotors and Hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) experiments, followed by outdoor field tests featuring up to 6 DJI M100 quadrotors. Results demonstrate (1) fast online motion planning for outdoor communication-centric multi-quadrotor operations and (2) the utility of CBFs in providing effective motion plans.
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Details
- Title
- Distributed Motion Planning for Multiple Quadrotors in Presence of Wind Gusts
- Publication Details
- DRONES, v 7(1), 58
- Publisher
- MDPI; BASEL
- Grant note
- Funding for this work came from Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, Drexel University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology through multiple internal research and development (IRAD) grants.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000916990100001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85146816423
- Other Identifier
- 991021860721304721
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- Collaboration types
- Industry collaboration
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Remote Sensing