Topology-Guided Perception-Aware Receding Horizon Trajectory Generation for UAVs

Abstract

The perception-aware motion planning method based on the localization uncertainty has the potential to improve the localization accuracy for robot navigation. How-ever, most of the existing perception-aware methods pre-build a global feature map and can not generate the perception- aware trajectory in real time. This paper proposes a topology- guided perception-aware receding horizon trajectory generation method, which contains a topology-guided position trajectory generation and a perception-aware yaw angle trajectory generation. Specifically, a memorable active map is built by selectively storing the visual landmarks. After that, a library of candidate topological trajectories are generated, which are then evaluated in terms of the perception quality based on the active map, smoothness, collision possibility and feasibility. In addition, the yaw angle trajectory is obtained through a front-end multiple refined path search and a back-end path- guided trajectory optimization. Comparative simulation and real-world experiments are carried out to confirm that the proposed method can keep more visual features in view and reduce the localization error.