Snap-Optimized Collision-Free Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Indoor Flying Robots Based on Bézier Splines

The use of autonomous indoor flying robots is becoming increasingly important for optimizing and increasing the flexibility of logistics processes in production. Flying robots are particularly suitable for logistics processes with high flexibility and dynamic requirements. To profitably exploit the full potential in terms of flexibility and short-term availability in the production environment, humans and flying robots must be able to work safely side by side. According to the current state of the art, this is not possible without static safety precautions (e.g. robot cells, safety nets), which, however, significantly limit the flexibility and dynamics of flying robot applications. Through a safety-oriented path planning method, thiswork contributes to reducing the safety risks associated with the use of autonomous indoor flying robots. The method presented here enables the calculation of a snap-optimized collision-free trajectory on a fixed flight level based on Bézier splines. Due to the convex hull property of Bézier splines, freedom from collision can be guaranteed for the entire trajectory. Obstacles are approximated by arbitrary polygons. In addition, the method offers an efficient way to limit the dynamics of the trajectory, ensuring feasibility with a real flying robot.