Decentralized algorithm applicable to parallel trajectory planning of multiple aircraft

Conventional algorithms for autonomous trajectory planning of multiple aircraft tend to require prohibitive computational time as the number of concerned aircraft increases. To overcome this drawback, this paper presents a fast and decentralized trajectory planning algorithm which can be executed in parallel. The developed algorithm combines force field method for conflict reduction and quadratic programming for trajectory optimization. Due to the parallel nature, the computational time in the developed algorithm is not as sensitive to the number of concerned aircraft as the conventional algorithms. Several results of numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the performance of the developed algorithm.