Real-time mission and trajectory planning

Abstract

An automated mission and trajectory planner for piloted as well as autonomous vehicle applications is described. The planning system is composed of a trajectory planner and a mission planner. The trajectory planner generates multiple, near-optimal trajectories between mission objectives and estimates the costs (in terms of time, energy and lethality) to fly those trajectories. The mission planner uses this information to select and order the subset of mission objectives that is consistent with any constraints that have been imposed on the planning process. By viewing the time available to plan as an explicit constraint on the planning process, the planner is capable of adapting its planning strategy to the requirements of a broad spectrum of real-time applications. The automated mission and trajectory planner has been implemented and evaluated in a serial computational environment. Results are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the planner in the context of a hypothetical vehicle and mission environment.