Strategic Deconfliction of Heterogeneous Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles using Direct Trajectory Optimization

Abstract

This paper deals with a strategic deconfliction of heterogeneous multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) via trajectory optimization. A trajectory optimization problem for multiple UAVs with different specifications is defined with constraints to accomplish deconfliction between UAVs and avoidance against obstacles in the environment and the objective function to minimize the total control effort of the UAVs. The takeoff and landing times of UAVs are considered as optimization parameters and the optimization problem is constructed with multiple phases defined with take-off and landing times of UAVs. Gauss pseudospectral optimization method considered in this paper decides not only the guidance commands for UAVs but also the take-off and landing times of UAVs by determining the durations of phases to minimize the objective function. A case study is performed to illustrate how a given strategic deconfliction problem is defined as a trajectory optimization problem for Gauss pseudospectral optimization method and to show the example result of the strategeic deconfliction with trajectory optimization.