Energy-Aware Navigation and Guidance Algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper presents two ways of how to tackle a problem of vehicle navigation and guidance, and focuses on evaluation of the performance and energy consumption of both methods. A simple energy-aware computing scheme, intended for control, navigation and guidance of autonomous unmanned aircraft, is proposed to try to make the most of both methods - providing good tracking accuracy whenever needed, minimizing power consumption otherwise. This scheme is based on the idea of using simple, non-demanding algorithms whenever possible and switching to sophisticated, more accurate control methods only when required by the mission profile. Simple algorithms may be executed in modules with less computing power, allowing high-performance on-board computers (needed for real-time execution of complex tasks) to be suspended, thus conserving energy. This scheme might bring noticeable benefits especially for vehicles in the micro-UAV category, where the amount of usable energy is extremely limited and the portion of energy consumed by on-board computers might be significant (up to 20%, according our measurements).