Rapid Online Path Planning Onboard A VTOL UAV

Abstract

This paper presents a rapid path planning approach enabling an unmanned aircraft to quickly react to newly located or changed obstacles. All three spatial dimensions are considered during planning, as it is likely to be necessary inside or under urban obstacles. A sampling based motion planning approach is combined with an anytime path search such that an online trade-off between path optimality and rapid path computation is possible. This substantial increase in system autonomy is achieved for holonomic manoeuvring through scenes with unforeseen obstacles changes. The proposed online planning approach does not require a highly reliable, real time remote control link for collision avoidance.