Multi-resolution Path Planning for Miniature Air Vehicles with Wind Effect

Path planning is a significant problem in mission planning. For Miniature Air Vehicles (MAVs) exposed to strong winds, their flight paths are dynamically influenced by wind. Moreover, the small payload of MAVs severely restricts on-board computational resources. To alleviate the computational burden, a multi-resolution path planning approach for MAVs is presented, which is considering the knowledge of obstacles and wind. The method is based on multi-resolution cell decomposition of the environment, and two key factors, which are distribution of wind and the distance between MAV and obstacles, affect the resolution. High resolution is constructed in the region close to the MAV and of wind varied severely. This multi-resolution representation of the environment increases numerical efficiency and robustness. Simulations are provided under two scenarios of flight environment, without wind and with the wind incorporated. The results show the proposed solution is effective in solving path planning problems for MAVs with wind effect and obstacles avoidance.