Quadrotor Intercept Trajectory Planning and Simulation

Abstract

Quadrotor drones pose a safety hazard when operated in or near controlled airspace. A hazardous quadrotor could be intercepted and removed by another quadrotor. In this thesis, we seek to determine if optimal control methods outperform missile control methods when applied to a quadrotor drone performing an intercept with a moving target. This is achieved by simulating the intercept of a target with a quadrotor and comparing the performance of several on-line trajectory planners. Two missile control based trajectory planners, pursuit guidance and proportional navigation, are compared against an optimal control trajectory planner. The time and energy used by a simulated quadrotor to intercept a target are the performance measures used for comparison. The trajectory planners use a three-degree of freedom model, and the simulated quadrotor uses a six-degree of freedom model. Each trajectory planner is compared in a crossing, head-on, and tail-chase geometry. All of the on-line results are compared to an off-line optimal solution. The results show that the off-line optimal control method performs better than the on-line trajectory planners, regardless of intercept geometry type. The proportional navigation planner has the best performance of the on-line trajectory planners.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2017
Accession Number
AD1046289

Entities

People

  • Robert Iii L Allen

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Control Systems
  • Control Systems Engineering
  • Energy Consumption
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Ground Control Stations
  • Guidance
  • Intercept Trajectories
  • Model Predictive Control
  • Moving Targets
  • Navigation
  • Proportional Navigation
  • Simulations
  • Three Dimensional
  • Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Virtual Reality

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Space
  • Space - Spacecraft Maneuvers