Intent Prediction-Driven Model Predictive Control for UAV Planning and Navigation in Dynamic Environments

TL;DR

This paper introduces an integrated UAV navigation framework that combines perception, intent prediction using MDP, and MPC-based planning to improve safety in dynamic environments with limited perception capabilities.

Contribution

It presents a novel intent prediction and planning approach that enhances UAV navigation safety amidst dynamic obstacles and perception limitations.

Findings

Fewer collisions in simulations and physical experiments.

Effective dynamic obstacle tracking despite occlusion.

Improved navigation safety over benchmark methods.

Abstract

Aerial robots can enhance construction site productivity by autonomously handling inspection and mapping tasks. However, ensuring safe navigation near human workers remains challenging. While navigation in static environments has been well studied, navigating dynamic environments remains open due to challenges in perception and planning. Payload limitations restrict the robots to using cameras with limited fields of view, resulting in unreliable perception and tracking during collision avoidance. Moreover, the rapidly changing conditions of dynamic environments can quickly make the generated optimal trajectory outdated.To address these challenges, this paper presents a comprehensive navigation framework that integrates perception, intent prediction, and planning. Our perception module detects and tracks dynamic obstacles efficiently and handles tracking loss and occlusion during collision avoidance. The proposed intent prediction module employs a Markov Decision Process (MDP) to forecast potential actions of dynamic obstacles with the possible future trajectories. Finally, a novel intent-based planning algorithm, leveraging model predictive control (MPC), is applied to generate navigation trajectories. Simulation and physical experiments demonstrate that our method improves the safety of navigation by achieving the fewest collisions compared to benchmarks.