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Online UAV path planning in uncertain and hostile environments

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Abstract

Taking uncertainties of threats and vehicles’ motions and observations into account, the challenge we have to face is how to plan a safe path online in uncertain and dynamic environments. We construct the static threat (ST) model based on an intuitionistic fuzzy set (A-IFS) to deal with the uncertainty of a environmental threat. The problem of avoiding a dynamic threat (DT) is formulated as a pursuit-evasion game. A reachability set (RS) estimator of an uncertain DT is constructed by combining the motion prediction with a RRT-based method. An online path planning framework is proposed by integrating a sub goal selector, a sub tasks allocator and a local path planner. The selector and allocator are presented to accelerate the path searching process. Dynamic domain rapidly-exploring random tree (DDRRT) is combined with the linear quadratic Gaussian motion planning (LQG-MP) method when searching local paths under threats and uncertainties. The path that has been searched is further improved by using a safety adjustment method and the RRT* method in the planning system. The results of Mont Carlo simulations indicate that the proposed algorithm behaves well in planning safe paths online in uncertain and hostile environments.

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Abbreviations

A-IFS:

An intuitionistic fuzzy set

ST:

Static threat

DT:

Dynamic threat

RS:

Reachability set

DDRRT:

Dynamic domain rapidly-exploring random tree

LQG-MP:

Linear quadratic Gaussian motion planning

NFZ:

No-fly zone

SH:

Sensing horizon

PF:

Particle filter

TS:

Time stamp

IFWA:

Intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging

TH:

Time horizon

DD:

Dynamic domain

TUDD:

Threat and uncertainty based dynamic domain

CD:

Collision detection

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Xidazhi Street, Harbin, 150001, China

    Naifeng Wen, Xiaohong Su, Peijun Ma, Lingling Zhao & Yanhang Zhang

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  1. Naifeng Wen
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  2. Xiaohong Su
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  5. Yanhang Zhang
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Correspondence to Naifeng Wen.

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Wen, N., Su, X., Ma, P. et al. Online UAV path planning in uncertain and hostile environments. Int. J. Mach. Learn. & Cyber. 8, 469–487 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13042-015-0339-4

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