Applying a Probabilistic, Real-Time Reactive Planner for Avoiding Hostile Fire to Both the Apache and a Fixed Wing UAV.

摘要

A previous paper described the design of a highly reactive, real-time planner for aggressive 3D aircraft maneuvering to avoid unguided threats, its design, and the results of applying a prototype to the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior in FlightLab simulation studies. This paper describes the development of the full-scale Probabilistic Road Map (PRM) Path Planner (PP), including its application to two different aircraft, the Apache and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). This included populating the maneuver libraries required by the PRM PP and testing with the two different aircraft models and associated maneuver libraries in FlightLab. Experimental simulation results are presented, including the surprisingly low level of effort required to adapt the PRM PP from a rotary wing manned platform to a fixed wing unmanned one. The PRM PP avoids likely paths from several simultaneous or sequentially fired munitions, avoids terrain and popup obstacles, considers a wide variety of other criteria including breaking or maintaining line of site with several stationary points or moving platforms, and reliably returns within a tenth of a second while finding a solution in all cases tested when one exists. In addition to showing that the techniques are applicable to widely different air platforms, they are also applicable to nonaircraft.