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Reactive Path Planning for Micro Air Vehicles Using Bearing-only Measurements

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Abstract

Autonomous path planning of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) in an urban environment is a challenging task because urban environments are dynamic and have variety of obstacles, and the locations of these obstacles may not be available a priori. In this paper we develop a reactive guidance strategy for collision avoidance using bearing-only measurements. The guidance strategy can be used to avoid collision from circular obstacles and to follow straight and curved walls at safe distance. The guidance law moves a obstacle in the sensor field-of-view to a desired constant bearing angle, which causes the MAV to maintain a constant distance from the obstacle. We use sliding mode control theory to derive the guidance law, which is fast, computationally inexpensive, and guarantees collision avoidance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MAGICC LAB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Rajnikant Sharma & Randal W. Beard

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Rajnikant Sharma & Randal W. Beard

  3. Raytheon Missle Systems, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Jeffery B. Saunders

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  1. Rajnikant Sharma
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  2. Jeffery B. Saunders
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  3. Randal W. Beard
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Correspondence to Rajnikant Sharma.

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Sharma, R., Saunders, J.B. & Beard, R.W. Reactive Path Planning for Micro Air Vehicles Using Bearing-only Measurements. J Intell Robot Syst 65, 409–416 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-011-9617-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-011-9617-x

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