A 4D grid based approach for efficient conflict detection in large-scale multi-UAV scenarios

Abstract

This paper proposes an algorithm to detect conflicts among UAVs from a strategic point of view. The method is based on the representation of the airspace as a 4D grid of cells. Given a set of UAVs with their scheduled 4D trajectories (their flight plans), the whole scenario is discretized as a 4D grid and the problem is solved by filling the appropriate cell for each way-point from the trajectories and checking the neighboring cells. The proposed method is tested and compared against a traditional algorithm getting a significantly better performance. The proposed method also scales very well with increasing number of UAVs and way-points per trajectory.