Trajectory Planning Under Stochastic and Bounded Sensing Uncertainties Using Reachability Analysis

Trajectory planning under uncertainty is an active research topic. Previous works predict state and state estimation uncertainties along trajectories to check for collision safety. They assume either stochastic or bounded sensing uncertainties. However, GNSS pseudoranges are typically modeled to contain stochastic uncertainties with additional biases in urban environments. Thus, given bounds for the bias, the planner needs to account for both stochastic and bounded sensing uncertainties. In our prior work we presented a reachability analysis to predict state and state estimation uncertainties under stochastic and bounded uncertainties. However, we ignored the correlation between these uncertainties, leading to an imperfect approximation of the state uncertainty. In this paper we improve our reachability analysis by predicting state uncertainty as a function of independent quantities. We design a metric for the predicted uncertainty to compare candidate trajectories during planning. Finally, we validate the planner for GNSS-based urban navigation of fixed-wing UAS.
Comment: Submitted to Navigation: Journal of the Institute of Navigation