Onboard path planning for unmanned aircraft automated taxi using a virtual line-graph

Abstract

Automated taxi is a key enabler for fully automated unmanned aircraft operation and is especially relevant with unmanned aircraft of size and weight which cannot be moved to the take-off position manually. But literature addressing automated taxi trajectory planning and demonstrations of unmanned taxi operations is still rare. Within this paper a path planning approach for automated unmanned aircraft taxi is described and demonstrated. A Dubins car model is used for motion planning. The path planning is conducted with a roadmap method, using a virtual line graph and a local straight-curve-straight planning problem. Using the presented method, taxi trajectories can be planned in a computationally efficient manner as evaluated in an exemplary scenario. For demonstration at a research airport the automated taxi path planning is integrated in a 450 kg maximum take-off mass unmanned gyrocopter system.