Path planning for carrier aircraft based on geometry and dijkstra's algorithm

Safety and efficiency of carrier flight deck are two important factors that have great effects on the comprehensive performance of carrier. This paper studies on path planning algorithms for carrier aircraft on the deck in consideration of safety and efficiency requirements. Firstly, a kinematic model of the carrier aircraft, obstacle avoidance models and boundary constraints are proposed. Subsequently, search zone for path planning is designed based on geometry. Then, the optimal path is computed according to Dijkstra's Algorithm and the details are described by steps. Finally, an example is simulation to verify the rationality and the effectiveness of the path planning algorithms.

I. Introduction

As a main weapon of naval aviation, carrier aircraft is an important force to maintain superiority in the ocean battlefield. Its mobility is a significant technical indicator to measure the capabilities of carrier in combat and comprehensive support, and it is also a key and difficult factor in aircraft design. Because capacity of the flight deck often becomes a bottleneck of the mission in optimizing the schedule of carrier aircraft, it is critical to make carrier aircraft move from the initial position to the target position quickly. Meanwhile, safety is as important as the operational efficiency for the flight deck. As an example, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, has a limited deck space which is much smaller than a general airport, and its flight deck is 332.9 meters long and 76.8 meters wide. In addition, there are a number of carrier aircraft and an island on the deck, so path planning for carrier aircraft on the limited deck space safely is a very important and difficult issue. Nowadays, artificial scheduling is applied to path planning on most of the decks, which is mainly based on the work experience of scheduling staffs. In view of defects of artificial scheduling, automatic path planning for carrier aircraft on the limited deck has become a hot research topic.