A Mixed Local-Global Solution to Motion Planning within 3-D Environments
Ryan Colt Hurley, Rick Lind, Joseph Kehoe · 2009
Autonomous flight through urban environments requires methods to generate trajectories that traverse a region and its associated obstacles. This paper introduces the development of a 3-dimensional motion planning algorithm using a random dense tree whose branches are motion primitives from a 3-dimensional version of the Dubins car called the Dubins airplane. The motion primitives consist of 3-dimensional maneuvers formulated as combinations of turn segments and straight segments with an associated constant rate of climb. The resulting motion planner builds the tree by pruning nodes that intersect 3-dimensional obstacles while connecting the remaining nodes with the motion primitives. An example demonstrates the motion planner can avoid building-style obstacles and even bridges using feasible paths that are sub-optimal solutions to minimize the cost of flight time.