Unmanned Aerial Vehicle's Trajectory Optimization in Constrained Environments

Gauss pseudospectral method, nonlinear programming, optimal control, trajectory optimization, unmanned aerial vehicle

The range of multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications has grown significantly over the last decade. This is to be attributed to their simple mechanical design, along with hovering and maneuvering capabilities, making them a popular choice in applications such as surveillance, aerial photography, cargo transport or infrastructure inspection. Varying mission requirements with respect to UAV target location, payload capacity, speed or time of flight combined with environmental constraints such as no-fly zones can be hard to satisfy without the use of modern trajectory optimization techniques. Trajectory optimization problems are often formulated using optimal control theory. An Optimal Control Problem (OCP) for generalized multirotor UAV introducing environmental constraints has been formulated and solved by a direct transcription approach. Furthermore, a Gauss pseudospectral method has been implemented, enabling to design a framework for UAV trajectory optimization problems in constrained environments.