A Harmonic Potential Approach For Simultaneous Planning And Control Of A Generic UAV Platform

TL;DR

This paper introduces a harmonic potential field (HPF) approach combined with a virtual velocity attractor (VVA) for unified planning and control of various UAVs, ensuring efficient and correct navigation.

Contribution

It presents a novel integration of HPF and VVA for simultaneous UAV planning and control, with proofs and simulations demonstrating effectiveness.

Findings

Effective UAV navigation with combined HPF and VVA

Provably correct control actions for diverse UAVs

Simulation results confirm approach's efficiency

Abstract

Simultaneous planning and control of a large variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is tackled using the harmonic potential field (HPF) approach. A dense reference velocity field generated from the gradient of an HPF is used to regulate the velocity of the UAV concerned in a manner that would propel the UAV to a target point while enforcing the constraints on behavior that were a priori encoded in the reference field. The regulation process is carried-out using a novel and simple concept called the: virtual velocity attractor (VVA). The combined effect of the HPF gradient and the VVA is found able to yield an efficient, easy to implement, well-behaved and provably-correct context-sensitive control action that suits a wide variety of UAVs. The approach is developed and basic proofs of correctness are provided along with simulation results.