"Distributed Motion Planning for Multiple Quadrotors in Presence of Win" by Pramod Abichandani, Deepan Lobo et al.
 

Distributed Motion Planning for Multiple Quadrotors in Presence of Wind Gusts

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2023

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.

Identifier

85146816423 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Drones

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7010058

e-ISSN

2504446X

Issue

1

Volume

7

Fund Ref

Drexel University

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