Biologically-inspired reactive collision avoidance

Motivated by the design of a future autonomous, decentralized air traffic management system for runway-independent aircraft, a biologically-inspired reactive collision avoidance algorithm is developed for a simple model of managing multiple vehicle systems. Techniques using gyroscopic forces and scalar potentials result in all vehicles arriving at their destinations within a reasonable time, with no collisions. Demonstrations involving over 100 vehicles in a crowded cross-traffic setting with buildings have been simulate with no collisions observed. The control approach has two key features, both of which are desirable for on-board implementation: it uses only locally sensed information and is computationally cheap. Biologically-inspired reactive collision avoidance 2