Cruise Trajectory Planning for Variable Configuration Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Cruise trajectory planning is a crucial part in aerospace, missile technology and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Earlier studies rarely considered the multiple constraints aspect in trajectory planning. This paper proposes an adaptive pseudo-spectral to achieve the desired trajectory planning for the variable configuration unmanned aerial vehicle. Based on the gaussian rule, the trajectory planning (i.e. optimal problem) is first transformed into a nonlinear programming problem (NLP). To more accurately solve the differential constraints, the aerodynamic parameters are calculated in different stages for the variable configuration UAV. Combined with flight environments and an objective function, we proposed sequential quadratic programming (SQP) to tackle transformed NLP. The numerical simulation results demonstrate that the planned cruise trajectory can satisfy the optimal requirements and constraint conditions, and it can enable the UAV to reach the target in various cruise altitude cases.