Research for automated UAV path planning

Abstract

In recent days, according to the development of the unmanned vehicle system, researches related to the whole mission operation have been performed. In the mission operation, the mission planning is regarded as the basic procedure. So, we will discuss the path planning problem as a sub-system of the mission planning. The path planning problem has developed in the field of the robot research, and applied to the UAV systems. In this study, we will approach the problem with research of the various methods about the path planning, and apply them to a certain problem. And as a new method, the path planning with the trajectory optimization technique will be presented. Trajectory optimization technique is a method to solve the optimal control problem which has a performance index. A UAV used for the military mission is generally operated in the adversarial area having many enemy threat sources. Thus the performance index which helps a vehicle to avoid the threat during the flight to the target location in the shortest time is established. The proposed path planning method gives the feasible solution and we can verify that. And finally, we will approach to the problem that combined with radar cross section (RCS), which is a parameter affecting to the detection possibility from enemy radars.