Flight formation of UAVs in presence of moving obstacles using fast-dynamic mixed integer linear programming

Abstract

This paper proposes the implementation of fast-dynamic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) and Path Smoother for efficient path planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in various flight formations. The UAVs taking part in a cooperative flight are assumed to be equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) which enables sharing the flight information with neighboring aircraft. The design and implementation of flights for various formations have been carried out in a generic manner such that multiple UAVs with arbitrarily geographically located base stations can take part in collision-free formation flight. The paper formulates the problem of path of planning in the framework of a novel fast-dynamic MILP and proposes a cost function that minimizes time and energy consumption. The paper presents elaborate construction of constraint equations to enforce the formation to visit pre-defined way-points and avoid the collisions with any intruder aircraft. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been verified and compared with respect to the standard MILP method via a number of simulations carried out using different scenarios featuring multiple UAVs flying in various formations.