Aircraft Trajectory Planning with an Altitude-Bound in terrain-following flight

In the present paper the problem of designing a flying vehicle trajectory to avoid the collision with Terrain by limiting the flight range in a flight corridor influenced by the shape of the terrain has been investigated. In order to improve the traceability of the designed trajectory, considering the performance characteristics of the aircraft, the effect of two performance parameters including of the maximum rate of climb and the maximum increasing rate of the flight path angle, are considered in the solution algorithm. In this regard, the quantification of the system performance, has been implemented during the definition of different cost functions to minimize the operating time, control effort and vertical acceleration imposing on the aircraft. Mathematical modeling of the terrain which is considered as the route location of the threat, has been implemented using a power polynomial solution for smoothing. Finally, optimal control theory and nonlinear programming approach are utilized to solve the defined problem. The evaluation of case studies and numerical simulations confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approach to solve the planning problem in flying maneuvers with low altitude requirements for follow and avoidance of direct and indirect environmental hazards.