Sampling based Receding Horizon Collision free Control For a Class of Micro Aerial Vehicles

A novel sampling based receding horizon control strategy that guarantees collision free navigation for a class of aerial robots is the topic of this paper. The proposed approach combines the concepts of receding horizon control and sampling based navigation strategies in order to derive a model based control framework, which respects input and state constraints, and achieves avoidance of any known obstacle while remaining computationally lightweight even for systems of high order and complex, convex or non convex obstacles and long prediction horizons. The control law is applied for the case of a multirotor Micro Aerial Vehicle that optionally also employs its capacity to direct its thrust via a rotors' tilting mechanism. Extensive simulation studies indicate that high performance collision free navigation is achieved and reasonably long prediction horizons can be handled while remaining applicable for on board deployment.