4D UAV Waypoint Arrival Guidance Based on Baseline Tau Vector Field

This paper introduces a novel baseline tau vector field (BτVF) method to provide four-dimensional (4D) guidance in time-constrained waypoint arrival tasks of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). To guide a UAV to reach the desired position with expected speed at the certain arrival time, the bio-inspired tau guidance laws are adopted to design the vector guidance field. The UAV guided by
$\mathrm{B}\tau\text{VF}$
can approach the baseline between two waypoints, and more importantly, the vehicle can arrive at the destination with strict time and velocity constraints of 4D flight tasks. A challenging 4D waypoint arrival dynamic simulation is designed for rotor UAV and solved by the proposed
$\mathrm{B}\tau\text{VF}$
method. The simulation result demonstrates that the proposed method can provide 4D guidance between waypoints efficiently and effectively.