3-Dimensional trajectory planning for single UCAV attacking multiple targets
Lincheng Shen · Journal of National University of Defense Technology · 2012
A trajectory planning problem for a single unmanned combat aerial vehicle(UCAV) performing an air-to-surface multi-target attackmission was studied.First,this problem was mathematically formulated as a variant of the traveling salesman problem(TSP),called the dynamic-constrained TSP with Neighborhoods(DCTSPN).A novel planning algorithm based on an updatable probabilistic roadmap(PRM) was then presentedto solve the DCTSPN.This algorithm blends the sampling-based motion planning ideas with combinatorial optimization,and can reduce thecomplicated trajectory planning problem in high-dimensional continuous state space to a routing problem on a finite discrete graph,while maintainingcompleteness guarantees(in a probabilistic sense).The entire planning procedure was divided into two phases: 1) In offline preprocessing phase,theoriginal problem was converted into a standard ATSP(Asymmetric TSP) by Halton quasirandom number generator and the Noon-Bean transformationalgorithm;2) In online querying phase,a fast heuristic searching algorithm was used to solve the ATSP.To generate dynamically feasible flighttrajectories,a trajectory planning algorithm based on the Gauss pseudospectral method(GPM) was developed.Numerical experiments indicate thatthe algorithm adopted can generate both feasible and near-optimal attack trajectories quickly for online purposes.