Minimum Time Trajectory Generation of Quadrotor under Path Constraint

Abstract

This research addresses the minimum time trajectory generation for a quadrotor under a path constraint. For meaning of the path constraint, it is a sequence of closely located position vectors that constitutes a desired line of trip in 3D Cartesian coordinate system. This work presents an algorithm to generate the time optimal trajectory on the desired path while ensuring dynamics of a quadrotor, maximum and minimum input limitation, and initial and final state. Due to nonlinearity of a quadrotor dynamics, the standard optimization problem cannot be solved in analytic way, therefore, the problem is discretized into a parameterized optimization problem by the method known as Direct Collocation Method. Experimental results include various paths transformed into feasible quadrotor time-optimal trajectories with desired inputs and states.