Title: Curvature bounded trajectories of desired lengths for a Dubins vehicle

Abstract: The talk will focus on the generation of planar trajectories using a Dubins vehicle. Such a vehicle serves as a realistic point mass representation of a complex real-world vehicle with limited turn rate capabilities like a car, submarine, fixed-wing aircraft, etc. We address the problem of generating trajectories of desired lengths between two oriented points. It is useful in applications wherein a single or multiple autonomous vehicles are to maneuver between any two points in a time bound manner. We propose to construct a feasible trajectory by the concatenation of two tangential circles. We start with a relaxed problem of trajectory generation between two points when only one of the points is oriented. In the given framework, we show the existence of infinitely many such trajectories of varying lengths between any two given points. Further, the bounds on the lengths of such trajectories are discussed which illustrate the reachability of any desired length. Thereafter, we discuss the conditions required for trajectory generation between two oriented points. Finally, we incorporate the notion of curvature boundedness into such trajectories and also determine the conditions necessary for the existence of trajectories of desired lengths.

Biography: Dr. Twinkle Tripathy is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering of IIT Kanpur. She received a Dual Degree of MTech. and Ph.D. at Systems & Control Engineering, IIT Bombay in Dec. 2016. She started her post-doctoral tenure at the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, NTU, Singapore. After serving there for a year, she joined the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology as a post-doctoral fellow. Her research interests broadly include control and guidance of autonomous systems, formation control problems and dynamic task allocation problems.