Constrained Path Planning and Guidance in General Wind Fields

This paper presents an optimal planning/guidance approach for a UAV point-to-point navigation in 2D, under wind influence, with the imposition of a general desired airspeed profile. A cost function weighting the travel time and the control effort is minimized through the Pontryagin's Minimum Principle. An analytical expression for the optimal heading to assure minimum-time flight is also derived. A general wind case in constrained path navigation is solved through an iterative procedure, using artificial potential fields.