Downwash-Aware Trajectory Planning for Large Quadrotor Teams

We describe a method for formation-change trajectory planning for large quadrotor teams in obstacle-rich environments. Our method decomposes the planning problem into two stages: a discrete planner operating on a graph representation of the workspace, and a continuous refinement that converts the non-smooth graph plan into a set of C^k-continuous trajectories, locally optimizing an integral-squared-derivative cost. We account for the downwash effect, allowing safe flight in dense formations. We demonstrate the computational efficiency in simulation with up to 200 robots and the physical plausibility with an experiment with 32 nano-quadrotors. Our approach can compute safe and smooth trajectories for hundreds of quadrotors in dense environments with obstacles in a few minutes.Comment: 8 page

Dynamic Lane-Changing Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Vehicles Based on Discrete Global Trajectory

Automatic lane-changing is a complex and critical task for autonomous vehicle control. Existing researches on autonomous vehicle technology mainly focus on avoiding obstacles; however, few studies have accounted for dynamic lane changing based on some certain assumptions, such as the lane-changing speed is constant or the terminal state is known in advance. In this study, a typical lane-changing scenario is developed with the consideration of preceding and lagging vehicles on the road. Based on the local trajectory generated by the global positioning system, a path planning model and a speed planning model are respectively established through the cubic polynomial interpolation. To guarantee the driving safety, passenger comfort and vehicle efficiency, a comprehensive trajectory optimization function is proposed according to the path planning model and speed planning model. In addition, a dynamic decoupling model is established to solve the problems of real-time application to provide viable solutions. The simulations and real vehicle validations are conducted, and the results highlight that the proposed method can generate a satisfactory lane-changing trajectory for automatic lane-changing actions

Hybrid control trajectory optimization under uncertainty

Trajectory optimization is a fundamental problem in robotics. While optimization of continuous control trajectories is well developed, many applications require both discrete and continuous, i.e. hybrid controls. Finding an optimal sequence of hybrid controls is challenging due to the exponential explosion of discrete control combinations. Our method, based on Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP), circumvents this problem by incorporating discrete actions inside DDP: we first optimize continuous mixtures of discrete actions, and, subsequently force the mixtures into fully discrete actions. Moreover, we show how our approach can be extended to partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) for trajectory planning under uncertainty. We validate the approach in a car driving problem where the robot has to switch discrete gears and in a box pushing application where the robot can switch the side of the box to push. The pose and the friction parameters of the pushed box are initially unknown and only indirectly observable

Trajectory-Oriented Approach to Managing Traffic Complexity: Trajectory Flexibility Metrics and Algorithms and Preliminary Complexity Impact Assessment

This document describes exploratory research on a distributed, trajectory oriented approach for traffic complexity management. The approach is to manage traffic complexity based on preserving trajectory flexibility and minimizing constraints. In particular, the document presents metrics for trajectory flexibility; a method for estimating these metrics based on discrete time and degree of freedom assumptions; a planning algorithm using these metrics to preserve flexibility; and preliminary experiments testing the impact of preserving trajectory flexibility on traffic complexity. The document also describes an early demonstration capability of the trajectory flexibility preservation function in the NASA Autonomous Operations Planner (AOP) platform