Disturbance Rejection in Dubins Path Planning

Dubins' result on paths of minimum length and bounded curvature led to a popular method of path planning for constant-speed vehicles moving in the horizontal plane. Constructing a Dubins path involves stitching segments that correspond to maximum rate turns and straight-line motions. However, a path that requires a maximum rate turn cannot be tracked, in general, because feedback corrections that are needed to compensate for disturbances may exceed the turn rate limit. In practice, one may artificially limit the maximum turn rate used for path planning, reserving some turn rate authority to correct path following errors. This paper provides guidance for determining how much to limit the turn rate based on the worst-case disturbance magnitude. This approach introduces a tradeoff between the path length and the ability to reject disturbances.