Volumetric harmonic field navigation validated on a physical Crazyflie quadrotor for the first time, beating Dijkstra guidance on clearance and jerk
A volumetric harmonic field combined with a constrained predictive planner queries field values at predicted positions instead of extracting a global reference path, showing larger minimum clearance and lower RMS jerk in physical tests.
ImportanceLocalEvidenceE2 unreplicated
Volumetric harmonic field navigation has been validated on a physical Crazyflie quadrotor for the first time: three authors self-report combining a precomputed volumetric harmonic field with a constrained predictive planner, querying field values at predicted positions rather than extracting a global reference path, and state that to their knowledge this is the first physical quadrotor demonstration of the method.
The prior approach was to extract a global reference path; in structured 3D tests, harmonic guidance achieved larger minimum clearance and lower RMS jerk than matched Dijkstra guidance, at the cost of longer paths.
Physical execution was verified in Crazyflie hardware trials; the measurements are self-reported by the authors, with no independent verification or peer review yet.
Boundary: the results have not been independently reproduced; the preprint was submitted September 14 and updated to v2 on September 16, see arXiv:2609.15680.