Path planning for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles by parameterized cornu-spirals

In this paper, a group of cooperative planning paths for simultaneous starting and arriving Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are generated by parameterized Cornu-Spirals (CSs). The continuity and smoothness requirements for the designed flyable paths are achieved by the continuous curvature characteristics of CSs. The final curves are minimized in length with the least number of parameters representing the polynomial expression of the path curvature, while satisfying the maximum curvature constraints, equal length constraints, and collision avoidance constraints. The paths are integrated from initial points to final points by a trapezoidal integration algorithm. A nonlinear programming solver is used to calculate the optimized parameters. Simulation results for four simultaneous UAV paths are presented with designated initial and final positions and attitudes.