对一种新颖的基于流水避石原理的无人机三维航路规划技术进行了阐述。复杂地形条件下具有全局最优性的无人机三维航路规划问题,不但要考虑地形对飞行安全的影响,还要考虑无人机自身的性能约束,最终规划出三维空间内可供无人机实际飞行的平滑航路。传统航路规划算法在计算复杂度、航路平滑性等方面难以令人满意。流水避石航路规划算法受自然界流水避开岩石并最终到达目标点的现象启发,
This paper introduces a novel path planning algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle( UAV) based on theory of fluid avoiding obstacles. To the problem of path planning which aims at the global optimum, not only the influence of terrain constraints on path safety but also the performance constraints of UAV should be taken into consideration, thus a feasible and smooth path will be planned in the three-dimensional space. The computation complexity and the path quality by traditional algorithms are usually unsatisfactory, hence we propose the method inspired by the phenomenon that water can avoid rocks and reach the destination. The common features between this phenomenon and the path planning problem are extracted and analyzed, and then the mathematical model generalizing the phenomenon is constructed on the basis of theory of fluid mechanics. By selecting the optimal streamline from the fluid field under the evaluation index, the three-dimensional optimal path under flight and environment constraints is obtained eventually.