TRAJECTORY PLANNING FOR COORDINATED RENDEZVOUS OF UNMANNED AIR VEHICLES

A trajectory generation strategy that facilitates the coordination of multiple unmanned air vehicles is developed. Of particular interest is the planning of threat-avoiding trajectories that result in the simultaneous arrival of multiple UAVs at their targets. In this approach, paths to the target are modeled using the physical analogy of a chain. A unique strength of the planning approach is the ability to specify or alter the pathlength by adding or subtracting links from the chain. Desirable paths to the target are obtained by simulating the dynamics of the chain where threats apply repulsive forces to the chain and forces internal to the chain tend to straighten it out. The result for multiple vehicles and targets is a set of smooth and flyable paths of equal length that reduces exposure to threats.