Spline Trajectory Planning and Guidance for Fixed-Wing Drones
Johannes Stephan, Stefan Notter, Ole Pfeifle, Federico Pinchetti, Walter Fichter · AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum · 2020
Automatic operation of fixed-wing drones plays an important role in research and commercial applications. Accurate planning and precise tracking of trajectories is a key aspect for flight in challenging environments with dense obstacles, e.g., urban areas. Within this paper, we propose a spline-based trajectory planner alongside an associated guidance framework. Compared to basic path descriptions such as consecutive straight lines, the spline representation allows to consider fixed-wing aircraft limitations and thus ensures feasible trajectories. Moreover, feed-forward controls can be deduced from the derivatives of the splines. Anticipating the control action necessary to follow the desired trajectory enables precise path tracking, with a nonlinear guidance scheme ensuring consistent system behavior and global stability. Flight test results are discussed to verify both the feasibility and performance of the approach proposed.