Static and Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance in Miniature Air Vehicles

Small unmanned air vehicles are limited in sensor weight and power such that detection and avoidance of unknown obstacles during flight is difficult. This paper presents a low power low weight method of detection using a laser range finder. In addition, a rapidly-exploring random tree algorithm to generate waypoint paths around obstacles known a priori is presented, and a dynamic geometric algorithm to generate paths around detected obstacles is derived. The algorithms are demonstrated in simulation and in flight tests on a fixed-wing miniature air vehicle (MAV). Index Words - Obstacle avoidance, waypoint path planning, rapidly exploring random tree, unmanned air vehicles, miniature air vehicles.