Autonomous Navigation and Sensorless Obstacle Avoidance for UGV with Environment Information from UAV

The problem of obstacle avoidance for an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) under the event of sensor failure is addressed in this paper. An unmanned air vehicle (UAV) equipped with a vision sensor act similar to a convoy protection agent to UGV in the event of a sensor failure. The UAV plans its trajectory according to the UGV's expected future trajectory. The UGV replans its trajectory after obtaining the information about geographic constraints like obstacles from UAV. The proposed obstacle avoidance method is experimentally validated in the outdoor environment with an autonomous UAV equipped with a camera and an autonomous UGV navigating based on GPS localization and environment information from the UAV.