How Far Two UAVs Should be Subject to Communication Uncertainties

• Published in: IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 429 - 445
• Main Authors: Quan, Quan, Fu, Rao, Cai, Kai-Yuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: air traffic; Air traffic management; Atmospheric modeling; Autopilot; Barriers; Collision avoidance; communication; Control systems design; Delays; Safety; Safety management; Safety radius; Sensors; separation principle; swarm; UAV; Uncertainty; Unmanned aerial vehicles
• ISSN: 1524-9050; 1558-0016
• DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2022.3213555

Unmanned aerial vehicles are now becoming increasingly accessible to amateur and commercial users alike. A safety air traffic management system is needed to help ensure that every newest entrant into the sky does not collide with others. Much research has been done to design various methods to perform collision avoidance with obstacles. However, how to decide the safety radius subject to communication uncertainties is still suspended. Based on assumptions on communication uncertainties and supposed control performance, a separation principle of the safety radius design and controller design is proposed. With it, the safety radius in the design phase (without uncertainties) and flight phase (subject to uncertainties) are studied. Furthermore, the results are extended to multiple obstacles. Simulations and experiments are carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods.