A Tree-Based Next-Best-Trajectory Method for 3-D UAV Exploration

This work presents a fully integrated tree-based combined exploration-planning algorithm: exploration-rapidly-exploring random trees (RRT) (ERRT). The algorithm is focused on providing real-time solutions for local exploration in a fully unknown and unstructured environment while directly incorporating exploratory behavior, robot-safe path planning, and robot actuation into the central problem. ERRT provides a complete sampling and tree-based solution for evaluating “where to go next” by considering a tradeoff between maximizing information gain and minimizing the distances traveled and the robot actuation along the path. The complete scheme is evaluated in extensive simulations, comparisons, and real-world field experiments in constrained and narrow subterranean and GPS-denied environments. The framework is fully robot operating system (ROS) integrated and straightforward to use.