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Proportional navigation-based collision avoidance for UAVs

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Abstract

A collision avoidance algorithm for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on the conventional proportional navigation (PN) guidance law is investigated. The proportional navigation guidance law being applied to a wide range of missile guidance problems is tailored to the collision avoidance of UAVs. This can be accomplished by guiding the relative velocity vector of the aircraft to a vector connecting the current aircraft position to the safety boundary of the target aircraft. Stability of the proposed algorithm is also studied using the circle criterion. The stability condition can be established by choosing the navigation coefficient within a certain bound. The guidance law is extended to 3-dimensional maneuver problems. Inherent simplicity and robustness of the PN guidance law provides satisfactory collision avoidance performance with different initial conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Korea Airforce, Seoul, Korea

    Su-Cheol Han

  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373-1 Kusong-dong, Yusong-gu, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea

    Hyochoong Bang

  3. Smart UAV Development Center of Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Yusong-gu, Daejon, 305-333, Korea

    Chang-Sun Yoo

Authors
  1. Su-Cheol Han
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  2. Hyochoong Bang
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  3. Chang-Sun Yoo
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Correspondence to Hyochoong Bang.

Additional information

Recommended by Editorial Board member Sangdeok Park under the direction of Editor Hyun Seok Yang. This research was performed for the Smart UAV Development Program, one of 21st Century Frontier R&D Programs funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea.

Su-Cheol Han received the B.S. degree from Korea Airforce Academy, Korea, in 1997, and the M.S. degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, in 2005. At present, he is serving as a pilot in Korea Airforce. His research interests are UAV guidance and control, especially collision avoidance.

Hyochoong Bang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in aeronautical engineering from Seoul National University in 1985 and 1987, respectively. He also received the Ph.D. degree in 1992 from Texas A&M University. From 1992 to 1994, he worked as a Research Assistant Professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) conducting spacecraft attitude control research. From 1995 to 1999, he worked for Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Since 2001 he has been a Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. His current research interest include spacecraft attitude control, spacecraft guidance, UAV guidance and control.

Chang-Sun Yoo received the B.S. degree from Korea Aerospace University, Korea, in 1987, the M.S. degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, in 1991 and the Ph.D. degree from Chungnam National University, Korea, in 2003. Since 1991, he has been a Research Engineer in Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea. His research interests are flight simulation, flight control system, inertial and GPS navigation.

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Han, SC., Bang, H. & Yoo, CS. Proportional navigation-based collision avoidance for UAVs. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 7, 553–565 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-009-0407-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-009-0407-1

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