# Search-based Motion Planning for Aggressive Flight in SE(3)

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.02748 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.02748/

## Key facts

- Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 7 Oct 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Learning High-Speed Flight in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05113/) (2021)
- [Time-Optimal Planning for Quadrotor Waypoint Flight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.04537/) (2021)
- [Learning Perception-Aware Agile Flight in Cluttered Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01841/) (2022)
- [Policy Search for Model Predictive Control with Application to Agile Drone Flight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03850/) (2021)
- [Large-scale Autonomous Flight with Real-time Semantic SLAM under Dense Forest Canopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.06479/) (2021)
- [Search-Based Task and Motion Planning for Hybrid Systems: Agile Autonomous Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10384/) (2023)
- [Distance and Collision Probability Estimation from Gaussian Surface Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00186/) (2024)
- [AMRA*: Anytime Multi-Resolution Multi-Heuristic A*](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05328/) (2021)
- [A Multi-Heuristic Search-based Motion Planning for Automated Parking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.07857/) (2023)
- [Time-optimal Flight in Cluttered Environments via Safe Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19646/) (2024)
- [Why Change Your Controller When You Can Change Your Planner: Drag-Aware Trajectory Generation for Quadrotor Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04960/) (2024)
- [Learning Agile Gate Traversal via Analytical Optimal Policy Gradient](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.21592/) (2025)
- [Vision-Guided Outdoor Flight and Obstacle Evasion via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24449/) (2026)
- [Learning Vision-Based Agile Gap Traversal: Differentiable Simulation with a Warm-Started Critic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.30696/) (2026)
- [ClearNav: Perception-Aligned Quadrotor Flight Using Differential-Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17419/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Quadrotors with large thrust-to-weight ratios are able to track aggressive trajectories with sharp turns and high accelerations. In this work, we develop a search-based trajectory planning approach that exploits the quadrotor maneuverability to generate sequences of motion primitives in cluttered environments. We model the quadrotor body as an ellipsoid and compute its flight attitude along trajectories in order to check for collisions against obstacles. The ellipsoid model allows the quadrotor to pass through gaps that are smaller than its diameter with non-zero pitch or roll angles. Without any prior information about the location of gaps and associated attitude constraints, our algorithm is able to find a safe and optimal trajectory that guides the robot to its goal as fast as possible. To accelerate planning, we first perform a lower dimensional search and use it as a heuristic to guide the generation of a final dynamically feasible trajectory. We analyze critical discretization parameters of motion primitive planning and demonstrate the feasibility of the generated trajectories in various simulations and real-world experiments.