Research on Obstacle Avoidance Path Planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Formation in Urban Environment

The application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in military, civil fields is becoming increasingly prevalent. Due to the complexity of the environment and the diversity of missions, current UAV technology is evolving towards the concept of swarm concept. In this paper, we introduce the environmental factors of the simulation and then adopt the elevation data of the urban model. Subsequently, the Rodrigues' rotation formula is introduced to facilitate the rotation of the UAV formation, combined with the translational coordinates of the path planning, in order to enable the transportation of the UAV formation within the three-dimensional environment. The particle swarm algorithm is highlighted as a key component in the planning of paths for point target formations in urban environment. The algorithm enables the control of distances between targets, the planned paths can be applied in the UAV swarm after the expansion process of the urban model. The above parts are finally integrated to realize the UAV formation's obstacle avoidance trajectory in urban environment.