Distributed Path Planning for a UAV Communication Chain by Dual Decomposition

In this paper, a distributed approach to Model Predictive Control (MPC)-based path planning for a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) communication chain under radio path loss constraints is proposed. It is based on the dynamic dual decomposition method and reformulates the centralized path planning optimization problem with coupled constraints into an equivalent distributed path planning optimization problem, where the resulting sub-problems are completely decoupled. The MPC-based optimization sub-problems are computed autonomously within each UAV, using convex quadratic programming and gradient iterations, with the requirement that each UAV communicates its current measured position and the computed optimal velocity trajectory to its neighbouring UAVs.