Stationary Obstacle Avoidance using Initial Heading Control of Proportional Navigation Guidance Law

Most research on obstacle avoidance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deals with complex path-planning algorithms with multiple modes and high computational time. However, frequently switching modes degrade vehicle control performance and long-time path-planing may lower the effectiveness of UAVs. For fast computation and simple structure of avoiding a stationary obstacle and reaching a target, we propose initial heading control of a proportional navigation law. By deriving the closed-form solution of the proportional navigation law, we obtain a maximum curvature condition incorporated by initial heading. We control initial heading angle to avoid an obstacle at the maximum curvature and to reach a target. Moreover, a compensation scheme is developed to avoid an obstacle located away from maximum curvature. The proposed schemes are validated by numerical simulations.