  Simultaneous planning and control of a large variety of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) is tackled using the harmonic potential field (HPF) approach. A
dense reference velocity field generated from the gradient of an HPF is used to
regulate the velocity of the UAV concerned in a manner that would propel the
UAV to a target point while enforcing the constraints on behavior that were a
priori encoded in the reference field. The regulation process is carried-out
using a novel and simple concept called the: virtual velocity attractor (VVA).
The combined effect of the HPF gradient and the VVA is found able to yield an
efficient, easy to implement, well-behaved and provably-correct
context-sensitive control action that suits a wide variety of UAVs. The
approach is developed and basic proofs of correctness are provided along with
simulation results.
