Fast Marching Square Method for UAVs Mission Planning with consideration of Dubins Model Constraints

In this work we present an approach for mission planning carried out by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a three-dimensional urban environment. The approach is based on the Fast Marching Square (FM2) algorithm. The FM2 algorithm is used as the planner, which generates the optimal-time path from an initial point to a final point, avoiding static obstacles in a three-dimensional building environment. The Dubins airplane model is used to check if the path resulting from the FM2 is feasible, considering constraints in flight such as turning rate, climb rate and velocity. All these constraints are considered for a fixed-wing aircraft. Thanks to this approach, the trajectory generated by the FM2 will be perfectly feasible for an UAV, always considering its constraints and the static obstacles of the environment. Two examples of application will be shown to demonstrate the good performance of the approach, introducing different altitude constraints.