A Space Mapping Based 0–1 Linear Model for Onboard Conflict Resolution of Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper addresses the onboard locally centralized conflict resolution problem of heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with variable headings. First, the geometric properties of the conflict resolution problem are analyzed in a two-dimensional (2-D) space. By mapping the nonlinear safe separation constraint to the sine value space, a linear constraint for safe separation is established for pairwise conflicting UAVs. Then, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is built to cope with the conflict resolution problem of heterogeneous UAVs, where the objective is to minimize the overall costs. A coordination coefficient is defined to enhance the coordination performance between UAVs. The proposed MILP model is extended to the conflict resolution problem of UAVs in a 3-D space. By using the CPLEX solver, the MILP model can be efficiently solved. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can generate conflict-free solutions more efficiently when compared with the existing short-term coordination algorithm. The proposed approach is able to realize UAV coordination in highly congested air traffic and satisfies the onboard conflict resolution requirement.