狭窄管道内基于数值优化的无人机精准避障算法

    Exact collision avoidance for UAV in narrow tubes via numerical optimization

    • 摘要: 针对狭窄环境下无人机(UAV)避障困难、航迹规划成功率低等问题,文章构建了无人机避障航迹规划最优控制问题(OCP)范式,并基于几何学、凸优化、数值优化等方法理论提出了一种无人机精准避障算法。该算法首先将无人机、障碍物和环境的几何形状表示为多面体,构建连续时间下的避障航迹规划最优控制问题;随后,将避障需求转化为两个集合相交为空以及一个集合包含另一个集合的数学问题,并利用几何方法和超平面分离定理构造了显式可微的避障约束;之后结合无人机运动学模型,采用多重打靶法将此问题离散为非线性规划问题(NLP),并利用内点法求解器IPOPT进行求解;最后,构造了一个狭窄管道内无人机躲避障碍物的案例,仿真结果表明:所构建的避障约束具有良好的可微性与光滑性,所提方法能规划出安全平滑的无人机避障航迹,为无人机在狭窄环境下的安全航迹规划与精准避障奠定了技术基础。

       

      Abstract: To address collision avoidance and the intractable trajectory planning for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in narrow environments, this paper proposes exact collision avoidance formulations based on theories and methods from geometry, convex optimization, and numerical optimization, and then constructs the trajectory planning problem involving collision avoidance as an optimal control problem (OCP). The algorithm first represents the geometry of the UAV, obstacles, and the environment as a polyhedron, and with these representations, the collision avoidance requirements are transformed into mathematical problems concerning the separation between two sets and the containment of one set within another. Secondly, by using geometric methods and the hyperplane separation theorem, differentiable collision avoidance constraints are constructed in explicit ways. Subsequently, using the UAV kinematic model, the aforementioned OCP is discretized into a Nonlinear Programming (NLP) problem via the multiple shooting method, and then solved using the interior-point optimizer IPOPT. Finally, a collision avoidance scenario is constructed where a UAV must avoid obstacles within a narrow tube. Simulation results demonstrate that the constructed collision avoidance formulations are differentiable and smooth, and the proposed planning method can plan feasible and safe collision-free trajectories for UAVs in narrow environments. The results indicate that the proposed methods lay a technical foundation for exact collision avoidance and reliable trajectory planning in such environments.