Flight Trajectory Optimization for Multiple Autonomous Glider Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Nazli E. Kahveci, Pétros Ioannou · 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit · 2008
Today’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are used for a variety of missions including surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, border patrol, law enforcement and disaster management. In order to conduct surveillance operations unmanned aircraft are equipped with downward pointing cameras monitoring the environment. Multiple aircraft can be assigned a cooperative mission providing a better surveillance platform in comparison to a single UAV in service. The automation of the vehicles in the formation, however, becomes a complicated task possibly demanding higher energy requirements. Soaring flight strategies thus appear to be effective for large area observation. In this paper we consider multiple glider UAVs and study the static soaring flight formulation in the form of a multiple-Vehicle Routing Problem (mVRP). The proposed guidance algorithm promises high level of autonomy for a UAV formation and guarantees energy efficient flight trajectories for the mission performance optimization. The flight path planning mechanism is demonstrated through a simulation scenario involving a team of unpowered UAVs being navigated along near-optimal flight trajectories and performing climb maneuvers to utilize rising air currents.