UAS Flight Path Planning using Numerical Potential Fields in Dense Non-segregated Airspace
Sajid Ahamed Mohammed Abdul, Satya Prakash K, Shuvrangshu Jana, Debasish Ghose · 2021
This paper addresses the problem of Urban aerial mobility (UAM), which refers to an air transportation system wherein unmanned aircraft systems (UAS's) are utilized to deliver small payloads on-demand by safely maneuvering in the known urban infrastructure occupied by dynamic air traffic. A multilevel framework is proposed that provides a solution for UAM in the non-segregated airspace. The proposed method takes advantage of a prediction-based zone partitioning algorithm that minimizes high-density traffic encounters. Numerical potential fields are used for global path planning as they provide optimum standoff clearance from obstacles and high-density traffic present in the environment. In the event of low-density traffic, a simple but effective octant-based local collision avoidance strategy is used.