Practical and Accurate Generation of Energy-Optimal Trajectories for a Planar Quadrotor

Fabio Morbidi (1) , Dominik Pisarski

1 MIS - Modélisation, Information et Systèmes - UR UPJV 4290

Motivated by the limited flight time of battery-powered multi-rotor UAVs, in this paper we address the problem of generating energy-optimal trajectories for a planar quadrotor. More specifically, by considering an accurate electrical model for the brushless DC motors and rest-to-rest maneuvers between two predefined boundary states, we explicitly compute the minimum-energy curves by adopting a free and a fixed end-time optimal control formulation. The numerical solution of these optimal control problems hinges upon a simple yet effective indirect projected gradient method. Simulation experiments illustrate the theory in a variety of realistic flight scenarios.

Mots clés: Quadrotors; Optimal control; Trajectory planning; Energy minimization; Projected gradient method

Domaines: Automatique; Robotique [cs.RO]; Systèmes et contrôle [cs.SY]

Fabio Morbidi, Dominik Pisarski. Practical and Accurate Generation of Energy-Optimal Trajectories for a Planar Quadrotor. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2021, Xi'an, China. pp.355-361, ⟨10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561395⟩. ⟨hal-03178460v2⟩