Fixed-Wing UAV Path Planning in a Dynamic Environment via Dynamic RRT Algorithm

This paper proposed a dynamic RRT algorithm that applied to fixed-wing UAV’s path planning in dynamic three-dimensional environment. The tree structure of the dynamic RRT algorithm was expanded by adopting the constraint equations to satisfy fixed-wing UAV’s actual dynamic constrains. In order to avoid collision with dynamic obstacles, corresponding locations of dynamic obstacles in the time of each step are considered in the algorithm. Also, B-spline was also used to interpolate the resulting optimal path for fixed-wing UAV. As a result, the algorithm could generate a smooth path that satisfy UAV’s dynamic constrains in the three-dimensional environment with static and/or dynamic obstacles. The simulation results showed the effectiveness of proposed dynamic RRT algorithm, indicating that it could be applied to fixed-wing UAV’s path planning in dynamic three-dimensional environment.