Advanced UAV Trajectory Generation: Planning and Guidance

This chapter presents a robust Trajectory Generation and Guidance Module (TG2M), a
software tool capable of generating complex six-degrees-of-freedom trajectories in 3D space with velocity, acceleration, orientation and time constraints. The TG2M is an extension module to the Aerial Vehicle Control Language (AVCL), a software architecture and interpreted language specification that address the issues of mission definition, testing, validation and supervision for UAVs (Barrientos et al., 2006). The AVCL platform incorporates a 3D visual simulator environment that uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) as the world’s data model. The GIS backend means all objects are geo-referenced and that several official and commercial databases may be used for mission planning (roads,airports, power lines, crop fields, etc.). The language specification contains a wide set of instructions that allow the off/on-line supervision and the creation of vehicle-independent missions.