Obstacle avoidance and path planning for carrier aircraft launching

Abstract Launching safety and efficiency are important indexes to measure the fighting capacity of carrier. The study on path planning for taxi of carrier aircraft launching under actual deck environment is of great significance. In actual deck scheduling, manual command is applied to taxi of carrier aircraft, which has negative effects on the safety of staff and carrier aircraft launching. In consideration of both the safety and efficiency of carrier aircraft launching, the key elements of the problem are abstracted based on the analysis of deck environment, carrier aircraft maneuver performance and task requirements. According to the problem description, the mathematical model is established including various constraints. The carrier aircraft and the obstacles are reasonably simplified as circle and polygons respectively. What’s more, the proposed collision detection model reduces the calculations. Aimed at the features of model, the theory of model predictive control (MPC) is applied to the path search. Then a dynamic weight heuristic function is designed and a dynamic multistep optimization algorithm is proposed. Taking the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier as an example, the paths from parking place to catapult are planned, which indicate the rationality of the model and the effectiveness of the algorithm by comparing the planning results under different simulation environments. The main contribution of research is the establishment of obstacle avoidance and path planning model. In addition, it provides the solution of model and technological foundations for comprehensive command and real-time decision-making of the carrier aircraft.