Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance Planning Algorithm for UAV Based on Dubins Path

Abstract

By considering the influence of turning radius on UAV movement, the Dubins path can use geometric methods to plan the shortest curve between the initial state and the end state of UAV. But, the important prerequisite for this path planning is that the location and size of obstacles should be known and it is assumed that the obstacles are round. However, in actual tasks, UAV often cannot know the position, shape, and size of obstacles in advance during the movement. Therefore, it is difficult to efficiently implement obstacle avoidance planning in an unknown dynamic environment. In view of the dynamic mission environment and low-cost UAV system, this paper proposed a UAV dynamic obstacle avoidance planning algorithm based on Dubins path, which make use of real time detection and estimation and can be used to optimize the real-time obstacle avoidance path of UAV under the premise of unknown obstacle’s position, shape and size. Simulation results show that the algorithm is correct and can improve the efficiency of low-cost UAVs performing tasks in a dynamic environment.