Towards Robust Optimization-Based Autonomous Dynamic Soaring with a Fixed-Wing UAV

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Harms, Marvin, Lim, Jaeyoung, Rohr, David, Rockenbauer, Friedrich, Lawrance, Nicholas, Siegwart, Roland
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866917400815861760
author Harms, Marvin
Lim, Jaeyoung
Rohr, David
Rockenbauer, Friedrich
Lawrance, Nicholas
Siegwart, Roland
author_facet Harms, Marvin
Lim, Jaeyoung
Rohr, David
Rockenbauer, Friedrich
Lawrance, Nicholas
Siegwart, Roland
contents Dynamic soaring is a flying technique to exploit the energy available in wind shear layers, enabling potentially unlimited flight without the need for internal energy sources. We propose a framework for autonomous dynamic soaring with a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The framework makes use of an explicit representation of the wind field and a classical approach for guidance and control of the UAV. Robustness to wind field estimation error is achieved by constructing point-wise robust reference paths for dynamic soaring and the development of a robust path following controller for the fixed-wing UAV. Wind estimation and path tracking performance are validated with real flight tests to demonstrate robust path-following in real wind conditions. In simulation, we demonstrate robust dynamic soaring flight subject to varied wind conditions, estimation errors and disturbances. Together, our results strongly indicate the ability of the proposed framework to achieve autonomous dynamic soaring flight in wind shear.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_06610
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Robust Optimization-Based Autonomous Dynamic Soaring with a Fixed-Wing UAV
Harms, Marvin
Lim, Jaeyoung
Rohr, David
Rockenbauer, Friedrich
Lawrance, Nicholas
Siegwart, Roland
Robotics
Dynamic soaring is a flying technique to exploit the energy available in wind shear layers, enabling potentially unlimited flight without the need for internal energy sources. We propose a framework for autonomous dynamic soaring with a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The framework makes use of an explicit representation of the wind field and a classical approach for guidance and control of the UAV. Robustness to wind field estimation error is achieved by constructing point-wise robust reference paths for dynamic soaring and the development of a robust path following controller for the fixed-wing UAV. Wind estimation and path tracking performance are validated with real flight tests to demonstrate robust path-following in real wind conditions. In simulation, we demonstrate robust dynamic soaring flight subject to varied wind conditions, estimation errors and disturbances. Together, our results strongly indicate the ability of the proposed framework to achieve autonomous dynamic soaring flight in wind shear.
title Towards Robust Optimization-Based Autonomous Dynamic Soaring with a Fixed-Wing UAV
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06610