UAV Path Planning Based on Receding Horizon Control with Adaptive

Strategy
Zhe Zhang1 , Jun Wang1,2 , Jianxun Li1 , Xing Wang2
1. Department of Automation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240
E-mail: lijx@sjtu.edu.cn, zhangzhebobo@sjtu.edu.cn
2. Luoyang Electronic Equipment Test Center of China, Luoyang, 471000
E-mail: sjzdhwj@sjtu.edu.cn

Abstract: Recently, researchers show great interest in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) path planning problem due to
development of artificial intelligence algorithms. However, the convergence of these kinds of heuristic methods can not
be proved. Therefore, the UAV path planning problem has been modeled as a linear optimal control problem to ensure
the convergence. But the computing time will increase exponentially as the scale of the problem enlarge. Hence, the
Receding Horizon Control(RHC) is introduced to the problem to guarantee the efficiency. Nevertheless, how to choose
a proper receding horizon span to keep balance between efficiency and accuracy becomes a new problem. An adaptive
strategy is proposed to choose a proper parameter to meet the real-time requirement and fuel consuming in this paper.
The strategy has better performance in the two simulation scenes, which indicates the effectiveness of the algorithm.

Key Words: UAV, Path Planning, Receding Horizon Control, Adaptive Strategy, Optimal Control

1 INTRODUCTION lating. This uncertainty prevent them from being used in

Route planning is to find a route with specific constraints
from the initial state point to the final state point according
to a certain standard assessment system. Route planning
has been widely applied in the navigation system of robots,
UAVs, surface crafts, and vehicles an so on[1]. Path plan-
ning is a kind of route planning, but path planning is more
complicated than route planning because of the complexity
of motion performance and task environment. UAV path
planning is to plan one or more safe flying routes with least
cost on the basis of aircraft maneuver performance, task
time, fuel consuming, enemy areas, mountain terrains, cli-
matic environment and other factors synthetically[2]. As
a result, UAV path planning faces greater technology chal-
lenge because of the existence of uncertain factors men-
tioned above[3].
With the development of the artificial intelligence algo-
rithms, more and more approaches can be applied into UAV
path planning. Rapidly-exploring Random Tree(RRT) is
the most famous probabilistic sampled-based approach[4].
The problem also can be decoupled into two step, which
is so-called Two-step approach[5]. Genetic Algorithm
(GA)is widely used in the area of path planning on behalf
of artificial intelligence algorithms[6]. Another popularly
used algorithm is Particle Swarm Optimization(PSO)[7].
Artificial Bee Colony Optimization(ABCO)[8] can be also
be implemented in UAV path planning. However, the con-
vergence of above algorithm can’t be proved before simu-
This work was jointly supported by National Natural Science Foun-
dation (61673265); Shanghai Aerospace Science and Technology Innova-
tion Fund(SAST201448); Aerospace Science and Technology Innovation
Fund and Aeronautical Science Foundation of China(20140157001).
military applications.
A. Richards.etc [9] have modeled path planning problem
as a linear optimal control problem. As a linear program-
ming, it can be solved in polynomial time with certain con-
vergence. For describing obstacles, binary variables are
introduced to express logical variables. As a result, the
path planning problem is transformed into a Mixed Integer
Linear Programming(MILP). Nevertheless, as the number
of binary variables become larger, the computing time in-
creases exponentially. It is so significant to reduce the scale
of the problem that the model can be widely applied. Re-
ceding Horizon Control(RHC) is introduced to deal with
the problem.
Receding Horizon Control is also called Model Predic-
tive Control(MPC)[10] which is developed in recent twenty
years. RHC includes Predictive Model, Receding Horizon
Optimization and Feedback Compensation three steps. At
each sampling instant, using current system model to pre-
dictive the state variation of future system and applying
the state of future system to found a optimization prob-
lem, solving the optimization problem online to obtain the
optimal control sequence, and putting the first control sig-
nal of the sequence into the practical system and repeating
the process at the next sampling instant is the basic idea of
RHC. But we need a proper receding horizon time span to
acquire both less fuel consuming and less computing time.
Most current application choose a fixed coefficient to solve
the problem, but in complicated environment, it is difficult
to meet the requirement of real-time. Therefore, we pro-
posed a adaptive strategy to choose a varying coefficient to
reduce the cost.
The paper is organized as follow: Section 2 describes the

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 MILP model of the UAV path planing. The traditional 2.3 Feasible Region
RHC is introduced in Section 3. Section 4 is the main con- The path planning model can be used in obstacle avoidance,
tribute of the paper which proposes an adaptive strategy to collision avoidance, plume avoidance for vehicles, plume
choose receding horizon time span. Simulation results can avoidance for obstacles, trajectory optimization and fleet
be found in Section 5 which verified the effective of the assignment and so on. The feasible regions 𝒳 , 𝒰 of above
algorithm and Section 6 concludes this paper. applications are same as Richards’s paper[9].
2 SYSTEM MODEL
2.4 Problem Modeling
An UAV path planning problem is an optimal control prob- From above subsections, the optimal control model of our
lem and can be described in a discrete form as follow. problem is regraded as 𝒫(𝑘, 𝑁 ), where 𝑘 is the current step
𝑁
∑ −1 and 𝑖 is the receding horizon span.
min 𝐽= 𝐿 (𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 , 𝑘) + 𝐹 (𝑥𝑁 , 𝑢𝑁 ) (1) 𝒫(𝑘, 𝑁 ) :
𝑥,𝑢
𝑘=0
𝑁∑
−1   𝑁∑−1    
𝑠.𝑡. 𝑥𝑘+1 = 𝑓 (𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 , 𝑘) (2) min 𝐽 = 𝑎 𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 − 𝑥𝑓  + 𝑏 𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘  + 𝑐 𝑥𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 − 𝑥𝑓 
𝑥,𝑢 𝑖=1 𝑖=0
𝑥𝑘 ∈ 𝒳 (3)
(6)
𝑢𝑘 ∈ 𝒰 (4)
𝑠.𝑡. 𝑥𝑘+𝑖+1∣𝑘 = 𝐴𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 + 𝐵𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 (7)
Where Eq.(1) is the cost function of the problem, 𝑥𝑘 is the 𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 ∈ 𝒳 , 𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑁 (9)
state variable at 𝑘 𝑡ℎ step and 𝑢𝑘 is the control variable at
𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 ∈ 𝒰 , 𝑖 = 0, . . . , 𝑁 − 1 (10)
𝑘 𝑡ℎ step. 𝐿 (𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 , 𝑘) is the cost function of 𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 and 𝑘
, 𝑁 is the last step of the simulation, so 𝐹 (𝑥𝑁 , 𝑢𝑁 ) is the 𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 ∈
/ 𝒪, 𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑁 (11)
cost function of final state 𝑥𝑁 and 𝑢𝑁 . Eq.(2) is the state 𝑥𝑘∣𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 , 𝑢𝑘∣𝑘 = 𝑢𝑘∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 (12)
equation of the problem and 𝑓 (𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 , 𝑘) is a function of
𝑥𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘 and 𝑘. In Eq.(3)(4), 𝒳 , 𝒰 are the feasible regions of Where 𝒪 is the region of obstacles defined in [9] and 𝑥𝑘∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 ,
state variable 𝑥 and control variable 𝑢, respectively. 𝑢𝑘∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 are the initial state of the 𝑘 step.
Receding Horizon Control need to consider the state and The optimal control model of the problem 𝒫(𝑘, 𝑁 ) is pro-
input of the future step with respect to the current step, so posed in this section, the Receding Horizon Control and
the reference prediction form is introduced. 𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 means algorithm will be introduced in the next section.
the current step is 𝑘, the future step is 𝑘 + 𝑖 and step span
3 RECEDING HORIZON CONTROL
is 𝑖. For example, Eq.(2) can be re-expressed as:
At each discrete sampling step, using current system state
𝑥𝑘+𝑖+1∣𝑘 = 𝑓 (𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑘) (5)
as the initial state, online solving a finite horizon open-loop
Variables in rest of the paper will be expressed in the ref- optimal control problem to obtain the optimal control se-
erence prediction form to distinguish between the current quence and only the first control signal of the sequence be-
step and the future step. ing applied to the system, repeating the process at the next
sampling step is what we called Receding Horizon Control.
2.1 Cost Function Using the strategy mentioned above, UAV path planning al-
Since our problem depends on time implicitly, function gorithm based on Receding Horizon Control is regarded as
𝐿, 𝐹 in Eq.(1) can be expressed as 𝐿(𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑥𝑓 ), Algorithm 1.
𝐹 (𝑥𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 , 𝑥𝑓 ), where 𝑥𝑓 is state variable of destination. Using Algorithm 1, we need to input the receding horizon
Considering the distance and fuel consuming, the specific span 𝑁 in advance. How to choose a proper 𝑁 is a prob-
formula of the cost function (1) is lem, and it is a tradeoff between efficiency and accuracy.
𝑁∑
−1   𝑁∑−1     Bigger 𝑁 means less cost value but higher computing bur-
min 𝐽 = 𝑎 𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 − 𝑥𝑓  + 𝑏 𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘  + 𝑐 𝑥𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 − 𝑥𝑓  den. Choose a small 𝑁 can meet the require of real-time
𝑥,𝑢 𝑖=1 𝑖=0
(6) application but may trap into the local optimal. So we pro-
Where 𝑎,𝑏,𝑐 are nonnegative weighting factors. pose a adaptive strategy to choose a proper 𝑁 at each step,
which will be discussed in detail in the next section.
2.2 State Equation
This paper is implemented in the Mixed Integer Linear Pro- 4 ADAPTIVE STRATEGY
gramming(MILP) framework, so the state equation must be In this section, we propose an adaptive strategy to choose
linear. Therefore, the state equation is receding horizon span 𝑁 . And we regraded 𝑀 as the final
𝑥𝑘+𝑖+1∣𝑘 = 𝐴𝑥𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 + 𝐵𝑢𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 (7) step number which means the step that UAV just arrive the
destination. The strategy is suitable for UAV flying in the
where city environment. The process of the strategy is described
[ ] [ 1 2
] as follow:
𝐼3 Δ𝑡 ⋅ 𝐼3 2 (Δ𝑡) ⋅ 𝐼3
𝐴= , 𝐵= (8)
𝑂3 𝐼3 Δ𝑡 ⋅ 𝐼3
(1) Calculate the distance between the start point 𝑥0 and
Where Δ𝑡 is the sample time. Obviously, Eq.(7) is the stan- the final point 𝑥𝑓 , 𝑑𝑖𝑠 = ∥𝑥𝑓 − 𝑥0 ∥2 , where ∥ ⋅ ∥2 is
dard formula of Euler Method. Euclidean norm.

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 Algorithm 1: UAV Path Planning Algorithm Based on chosen as 13 𝑀 ∗ (if not a integer, round up) in the
Receding Horizon Control actual flight-test.
1 Initialization:
(6) if the requirement of efficiency and accuracy is high,
Input: initial position 𝑥0 , final position 𝑥𝑓 , receding
horizon span 𝑁
the horizon can not be selected a fixed number any
2 Set 𝑥0∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑥∗0 = 𝑥0 , 𝑢0∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑢∗0 = 0 more, an adaptive 𝑁 is acquired to meet the require-
3 for 𝑘 = 0 until meeting terminal condition do ment. UAV path planning algorithm based on Reced-
{ }𝑁 { }𝑁 ing Horizon Control with adaptive strategy is proposed
4 Obtain optimal sequence 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 𝑖=1 , 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 𝑖=1
by solving 𝒫(𝑘, 𝑁 ) to choose 𝑁 and regarded as Algorithm 2.
5 if 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 = 𝑥𝑓 then
6 Set 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖 = 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖 = 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑁 .
7 break;
8 end Algorithm 2: UAV Path Planning Algorithm Based on
9 Update: Receding Horizon Control with Adaptive Strategy
∗ ∗
1 𝑥𝑘+1∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑥𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘+1∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑢𝑘+1∣𝑘 ,
1 Initialization:
2 𝑥∗𝑘+1 = 𝑥∗𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑢∗𝑘+1 = 𝑢∗𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑘 = 𝑘 + 1 Input: initial position 𝑥0 , final position 𝑥𝑓
2 Set 𝑥0∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑥∗0 = 𝑥0 , 𝑢0∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑢∗0 = 0, receding horizon
10 end span 𝑁 = 𝜔𝑖𝑛𝑖 ∗ 𝑀 ∗
Output: {𝑥∗𝑖 }𝑘+𝑁 ∗ 𝑘+𝑁
𝑖=0 , {𝑢𝑖 }𝑖=0 3 for 𝑘 = 0 until meeting terminal condition do
{ }𝑁 { }𝑁
4 Obtain optimal sequence 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 𝑖=1 , 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 𝑖=1
by solving 𝒫(𝑘, 𝑁 )
(2) Ignore the influence of the obstacle and other factors, 5 if 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 = 𝑥𝑓 then
Calculate the minimum final step number 𝑀𝑚𝑖𝑛 on the 6 Set 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖 = 𝑥∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖 = 𝑢∗𝑘+𝑖∣𝑘 , 𝑖 = 1, . . . , 𝑁
basis of the maximum velocity 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 and acceleration 7 break;
𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑥 . 8 end
9 Update:
 
(3) According to the map size and the obstacles number, 1 Current cover distance 𝑑𝑖𝑠(𝑘) = 𝑥𝑘∣𝑘 − 𝑥𝑘+𝑁 ∣𝑘 
set 𝑁 = 𝑀𝑚𝑖𝑛 + 𝑁𝑟𝑒𝑓 and the value of 𝑁𝑟𝑒𝑓 can be { }2 2

and distance ratio 𝜌𝑑𝑖𝑠 = 𝑑𝑖𝑠(𝑘)𝑑𝑖𝑠

found in Table 1.
Table 1: Value of 𝑁𝑟𝑒𝑓
𝑁𝑟𝑒𝑓 Map Size
Small Middle
𝑂𝑛
5 and under 20 50
5∼10 50 100
10 and above 100 200
In Table 1, 𝑂𝑛 means obstacle numbers and Small,
Middle, Big represent that the map size are 1000×1000
and under, 1000 × 1000 ∼ 5000 × 5000, 5000 × 5000
and above respectively.
(4) Implement Algorithm 1 with 𝑁 , 𝑥0 , and 𝑥𝑓 . Generally,
because 𝑁 ≥ 𝑀 ∗ in our strategy, the optimal final
step number 𝑀 ∗ can be obtained and the UAV will be
hovering in the rest step, that is, UAV arrive the final
point at 𝑀 ∗ step and the UAV will stay at the final
point at rest of 𝑁 − 𝑀 ∗ steps.
(5) if the requirement of efficiency and accuracy is not very
high, the receding horizon number 𝑁 can be selected
as a fixed number:
∙ if the real-time requirement is not very high but
task requests low fuel consumption, the practical
receding horizon 𝑁 can be chosen as 12 𝑀 ∗ (if not
a integer, round up) in the actual flight-test.
∙ if the requirement of fuel consumption is not
very high but task requests high real-time per-
formance, the practical receding horizon can be
2 The obstacle number 𝑂𝑛 (𝑘) in current region
and obstacle ratio 𝜌𝑜𝑏𝑠 = 𝑂𝑂
𝑛 (𝑘)
𝑛
3 Time span weight 𝜔𝑒𝑛𝑣 = 𝜔𝑑𝑖𝑠 ⋅ 𝜌𝑑𝑖𝑠 + 𝜔𝑜𝑏𝑠 ⋅ 𝜌𝑜𝑏𝑠
Big
4 𝑥𝑘+1∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑥∗𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑢𝑘+1∣𝑖𝑛𝑖 = 𝑢∗𝑘+1∣𝑘
100
200 5 𝑥∗𝑘+1 = 𝑥∗𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑢∗𝑘+1 = 𝑢∗𝑘+1∣𝑘 , 𝑘 = 𝑘 + 1
500 6 Receding horizon span 𝑁 = 𝜔𝑁 ⋅ 𝜔𝑒𝑛𝑣 ⋅ 𝑀 ∗
10 end
Output: {𝑥∗𝑖 }𝑘+𝑁 ∗ 𝑘+𝑁
𝑖=0 , {𝑢𝑖 }𝑖=0
In Algorithm 2, 𝜔𝑖𝑛𝑖 ∈ (0, 0.5] is the weight coefficient
for first 𝑁 . 𝑀 ∗ is the optimal final step number of the
problem mentioned in (4). 𝜔𝑒𝑛𝑣 is a weight coefficient
associated with current region area and obstacles number.
𝜔𝑑𝑖𝑠 , 𝜔𝑜𝑏𝑠 ∈ [0, 1] are weight coefficients of current re-
gion distance and obstacles number in the current region
respectively and 𝜔𝑑𝑖𝑠 + 𝜔𝑜𝑏𝑠 = 1. 𝜔𝑁 ∈ (0.5, 1] is the
comprehensive weight coefficient for 𝑁 .
5 SIMULATION RESULTS
In the last section, Algorithm 2 is proposed to choose an
adaptive 𝑁 to meet the requirement of efficiency and accu-
racy. In the this section, the simulation for one UAV flying
in the city environment is implemented to verify the effect
of the algorithm.
The simulation is implemented by CVX, CVX is developed
by CVX Research, Inc, Stanford University[11]. Simula-
tion program operates on a 3.6 GHz person computer with
8GB of RAM.

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 5.1 Scene One Table 2: Simulation results for a UAV flying in the city
There are six cubic obstacles simulating buildings in the environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 6
first scene and map size is 75 × 120 × 40. Using strategy 𝑁 Total time Ave time 𝑀 Opt value
mentioned in Section 4, choose 𝑁 = 13 + 20 = 33 at the 5 56.26 1.62 34 1499.49
first time and gain 𝑀 ∗ = 19. Some initial parameter are 8 40.45 2.31 22 987.23
10 29.2 3.48 19 882.28
listed. Sampling time 𝑑𝑡 = 1𝑠, 𝑥0 = (65, −60, 0), 𝑥𝑓 =
14 16.04 5.58 19 865.57
(98, 50, 10), 𝑣0 = 𝑣𝑓 = 0(𝑚/𝑠), 𝑎0 = 𝑎𝑓 = 0(𝑚/𝑠2 ),
Adaptive strategy 15.95 1.97 19 843.55
𝑎 = 𝑐 = 1, 𝑏 = 0.01, 𝜔𝑑𝑖𝑠 = 0.6, 𝜔𝑜𝑏𝑠 = 0.4, 𝜔𝑁 = 0.88.
19 8.55 8.55 19 843.55
There are six trajectories in Figure 1 and two perspectives
to demonstrate more clearly. The comparison between dif- 1600
ferent 𝑁 and adaptive strategy are illustrated in Figure 2.
1499.49
8.5
1400 8.55

7.5
1200

Nt=5
987.23 6.5
1000
Nt=5 Nt=8
Nt=8 Nt=10
Nt=10 Nt=14
Adaptive Nt

Average time/s
Nt=14
Adaptive Nt Nt=19

882.28
Final

Optium value
Nt=19
40

35

30
Final
40
865.57 843.55 843.55
Altitude(m)
25
20

5.5
Altitude(m)

20
0
15
60

800
10

60
40 5.58
40 20

120
20 110
0

0
100
110
120

90
100

4.5
600
-20
80
90
-20 Start
80 70
Start
70 North(m) 60
-40
North(m) -40 60
50
50 East(m)
40 East(m) 40
-60 30 -60 30

400 3.5
(a) UAV trajectories front view (b) UAV trajectories top view 3.48

200 2.5
Figure 1: Different perspectives for UAV trajectories with 1.62 2.31

different 𝑁 in the city environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 6 0 1.97 1.5

5 8 10 14 Adaptive 19
stategy
Horizon range Nt

opt value average time

Final
Nt=5
Nt=8

40

35

30
Nt=8
Adaptive Nt

Figure 3: Simulation results for a UAV flying in the city

environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 6
40 Final
25
Altitude(m)

30 20
Altitude(m)

20 15

10 10

5
0
0
60
60

40
40
120

110
20
20
100
120
0 90
0 110
80 100
Start 90
-20 70 -20
80
60 Start
70
North(m) 50 North(m) -40 60
-40
East(m) 50
40 East(m)
40
-60 30 -60 30

(a) UAV trajectories 𝑁 = 5 (b) UAV trajectories Adaptive 5.2 Scene Two
v.s. 𝑁 = 8 Strategy v.s. 𝑁 = 8
There are evelven cubic obstacles simulating buildings in
40
Nt=10
Adaptive Nt

Adaptive Nt
Nt=19
the second scene and map size is 200 × 300 × 100. Using
strategy mentioned in Section 4, choose 𝑁 = 27 + 100 =
35 40
30 Final
35
25
Altitude(m)

20
30
15

10 25
Altitude(m)

127 at the first time and gain 𝑀 ∗ = 42. Some initial pa-
20 Final
0

60
15

40 10

5 120
20
110
120 100
0
90
0 110
60 80
100 40 Start
70

rameter are listed. Sampling time 𝑑𝑡 = 1𝑠, 𝑥0 = (0, 0, 0),

90 20 60
-20 0 50
80
Start -20 40
70 -40 30 East(m)
60 -60
North(m) -40 North(m)
50
40 East(m)
-60 30

(c) UAV trajectories Adaptive (d) UAV trajectories Adaptive 𝑥𝑓 = (200, 300, 50), 𝑣0 = 𝑣𝑓 = 0(𝑚/𝑠), 𝑎0 = 𝑎𝑓 =
Strategy v.s. 𝑁 = 10 Strategy v.s. 𝑁 = 19 0(𝑚/𝑠2 ), 𝑎 = 𝑐 = 1, 𝑏 = 0.01, 𝜔𝑑𝑖𝑠 = 0.6, 𝜔𝑜𝑏𝑠 = 0.4,
Figure 2: UAV trajectories comparison in the city environ- 𝜔𝑁 = 0.88.
ment with 𝑂𝑛 = 6 There are seven trajectories in Figure 4 and are two per-
spectives to demonstrate more clearly. The comparison be-
tween different 𝑁 and adaptive strategy are illustrated in
The simulation result for one UAV flying in the city envi- Figure 5. The simulation result for one UAV flying in the
ronment with 𝑂𝑛 = 6 can be found in Table 2 and is also
illustrated in Figure 3. Final
Nt=8
Nt=10
Nt=15
Nt=21
Nt=30
Adaptive Nt
Nt=42

Final

From Table 2, if we choose using 𝑁 = 19, the optimal

100
Nt=8
Nt=10
80
Nt=15
Nt=21
Nt=30
60
Altitude(m)

Adaptive Nt
Nt=42
40 100

90
20
80

0 70

60
Altitude(m)

trajectory will be obtained in one iteration step, but the cal-

300
50
200
250 40 180
30 160
200 20 140

10 120
150 200
0 100

culating time is much larger. 𝑁 = 8 uses less time but

180
160 80
100 140 300
120 60
250
100
80 200 40
North(m) 50
60 Start
150 20
Start 40 East(m)
100
20 East(m) 0
0 0 50
North(m)
0

more fuel consumption, and 𝑁 = 10 is the opposite, which (a) UAV trajectories front view (b) UAV trajectories left view
verified the strategy mentioned in Section 4. 𝑁 = 5 cost
least in each step but with maximum optimal value and is Figure 4: Different perspectives for UAV trajectories with
the least receding horizon time span in the first scene be- different 𝑁 in the city environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 11
cause less 5 the UAV will be trapped and can’t arrive the
destination. The adaptive strategy uses little more time than city environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 11 can be found in Table 3
𝑁 = 5 but fuel consume is much less. The optimal value of and is also illustrated in Figure 6.
adaptive strategy should be little bigger than 𝑁 = 19, but The data analysis of scene one is the same as scene one,
is same in the first scene because of the map size. In fact, and is not listed here because of the length of the paper.
there is some difference between trajectories of adaptive 𝑁 = 42 is the optimal solution and 𝑁 = 8 is the least
strategy and 𝑁 = 19 which can be seen in Figure 2(d). The receding horizon time span. The adaptive strategy performs
simulation result indicates the adaptive strategy has better better than other 𝑁 and indicates our algorithm is practical
performance. and effective again.

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 Nt=15
Adaptive Nt

Final
ing.
100

80

60

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Altitude(m)
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Nt=10
40
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100 20

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Figure 6: Simulation results for a UAV flying in the city

environment with 𝑂𝑛 = 11

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