Safe Periodic Trochoidal Paths for Fixed-Wing UAVs in Confined Windy Environments

2025-03-02

AI Summary

Fixed-wing UAVs face significant challenges in safe hovering and efficient area coverage within confined, wind-prone mountainous environments due to their inherent inability to hover and susceptibility to wind disturbances. Method: This paper proposes a wind-invariant periodic trochoidal path safety set and a dynamic switching planning framework. We first construct a trochoidal periodic path safety set robust to arbitrary wind fields, overcoming the conservatism of conventional single-circular loiter patterns. Then, we design a path-type adaptive switching mechanism based on minimal envelope scaling, enabling real-time safety-preserving replanning under wind perturbations. The approach integrates trochoidal motion modeling, wind-field robustness analysis, safety set theory, and online switching strategies. Contribution/Results: Experiments in representative mountainous terrain demonstrate a tenfold increase in achievable waypoints, significantly enhancing both maneuverability safety and mission coverage capability of fixed-wing UAVs under complex, time-varying wind conditions.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Intelligent Robots: Motion and Path Planning
• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

Due to their energy-efficient flight characteristics, fixed-wing type UAVs are useful robotic tools for long-range and duration flight applications in large-scale environments. However, flying fixed-wing UAV in confined environments, such as mountainous regions, can be challenging due to their limited maneuverability and sensitivity to uncertain wind conditions. In this work, we first analyze periodic trochoidal paths that can be used to define wind-aware terminal loitering states. We then propose a wind-invariant safe set of trochoidal paths along with a switching strategy for selecting the corresponding minimum-extent periodic path type. Finally, we show that planning with this minimum-extent set allows us to safely reach up to 10 times more locations in mountainous terrain compared to planning with a single, conservative loitering maneuver.

Problem

• Develops safe periodic paths for fixed-wing UAVs in windy, confined environments.
• Proposes wind-invariant trochoidal paths and switching strategies for optimal navigation.
• Enables reaching significantly more locations in mountainous terrain safely.

Innovation

• Wind-aware periodic trochoidal paths for UAVs
• Switching strategy for minimum-extent path selection
• Enhanced location reachability in confined windy environments