Adaptive fault-tolerant attitude tracking control for hypersonic vehicle with unknown inertial matrix and states constraints

This paper proposes an adaptive fault-tolerant control (FTC) method for hypersonic vehicle (HSV) with unexpected centroid shift, actuator fault, time-varying full state constraints, and input saturation. The occurrence of unexpected centroid shift has three main effects on the HSV system, which are system uncertainties, eccentric moments, and variation of input matrix. In order to ensure the time-varying state constraints, a novel attitude state constraint control strategy, to keep the safe flight of HSV, is technically proposed by a time-varying state constraint function (TVSCF). A unified controller is designed to handle the time-varying state constraints according to the proposed TVSCF. Then, the constrained HSV system can be transformed into a novel free-constrained system based on the TVSCF. For the variation of system input matrix, input saturation and actuator fault, a special Nussbaum-type function is designed to compensate for those time-varying nonlinear terms. Additionally, the auxiliary systems is designed to compensate the constraint of system control inputs. Then, it is proved that the proposed control scheme can guarantee the boundedness of all closed-loop signals based on the Lyapunov stability theory. At last, the simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant control scheme.</p

Design and application of advanced disturbance rejection control for small fixed-wing UAVs

Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have seen continual growth in both research and commercial applications. Attractive features such as their small size, light weight and low cost are a strong driver of this growth. However, these factors also bring about some drawbacks. The light weight and small size means that small UAVs are far more susceptible to performance degradation from factors such as wind gusts. Due to the generally low cost, available sensors are somewhat limited in both quality and available measurements. For example, it is very unlikely that angle of attack is sensed by a small UAV. These aircraft are usually constructed by the end user, so a tangible amount of variation will exist between different aircraft of the same type. Depending on application, additional variation between flights from factors such as battery placement or additional sensors may exist. This makes the application of optimal model based control methods difficult. Research literature on the topic of small UAV control is very rich in regard to high level control, such as path planning in wind. A common assumption in such literature is the existence of a low level control method which is able to track demanded aircraft attitudes to complete a task. Design of such controllers in the presence of significant wind or modelling errors (factors collectively addressed as lumped disturbances herein) is rarely considered. Disturbance Observer Based Control (DOBC) is a means of improving the robustness of a baseline feedback control scheme in the presence of lumped disturbances. The method allows for the rejection of the influence of unmeasurable disturbances much more quickly than traditional integral control, while also enabling recovery of nominal feedback con- trol performance. The separation principle of DOBC allows for the design of a nominal feedback controller, which does not need to be robust against disturbances. A DOBC augmentation can then be applied to ensure this nominal performance is maintained even in the presence of disturbances. This method offers highly attractive properties for control design, and has seen a large rise in popularity in recent years. Current literature on this subject is very often conducted purely in simulation. Ad- ditionally, very advanced versions of DOBC control are now being researched. To make the method attractive to small UAV operators, it would be beneficial if a simple DOBC design could be used to realise the benefits of this method, as it would be more accessible and applicable by many. This thesis investigates the application of a linear state space disturbance observer to low level flight control of a small UAV, along with developments of the method needed to achieve good performance in flight testing. Had this work been conducted purely in simulation, it is likely many of the difficulties encountered would not have been addressed or discovered. This thesis presents four main contributions. An anti-windup method has been devel- oped which is able to alleviate the effect of control saturation on the disturbance observer dynamics. An observer is designed which explicitly considers actuator dynamics. This development was shown to enable faster observer estimation dynamics, yielding better disturbance rejection performance. During initial flight testing, a significant aeroelastic oscillation mode was discovered. This issue was studied in detail theoretically, with a pro- posed solution developed and applied. The solution was able to fully alleviate the effect in flight. Finally, design and development of an over-actuated DOBC method is presented. A method for design of DOBC for over actuated systems was developed and studied. The majority of results in this thesis are demonstrated with flight test data

Adaptive Active Anti-vibration Control for a Three-dimensional Helicopter Flexible Slung-load System with Input Saturations and Backlash

This study investigates active anti-vibration control for a three-dimensional helicopter flexible slung-load system (HFSLS) subject to input saturations and backlash. The first target of the study is to establish a model for a three-dimensional HFSLS. The second target is to develop an adaptive control law for a HFSLS by analyzing its ability to compensate for the effects of input saturations, input backlash, and external disturbances, while achieving the goal of vibration reduction. Simulation results of the numerical show that the proposed adaptive active control technology is effective in solving the oscillation suppression problem for the three-dimensional HFSLS with input saturations and backlash.</p

Disturbance observer based control with anti-windup applied to a small fixed wing UAV for disturbance rejection

Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are attracting increasing interest due to their favourable features; small size, low weight and cost. These features also present different challenges in control design and aircraft operation. An accurate mathematical model is unlikely to be available meaning optimal control methods become difficult to apply. Furthermore, their reduced weight and inertia mean they are significantly more vulnerable to environmental disturbances such as wind gusts. Larger disturbances require more control actuation, meaning small UAVs are far more susceptible to actuator saturation. Failure to account for this can lead to controller windup and subsequent performance degradation. In this work, numerical simulations are conducted comparing a baseline Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller to integral augmentation and Disturbance Observer Based Control (DOBC). An anti-windup scheme is added to the DOBC to attenuate windup effects due to actuator saturation. A range of external disturbances are applied to demonstrate performance. The simulations conduct manoeuvres which would occur during landing, statistically the most dangerous flight phase, where fast disturbance rejection is critical. Validation simulations are then conducted using commercial X-Plane simulation software. This demonstrates that DOBC with anti-windup provides faster disturbance rejection of both modelling errors and external disturbances

Six-DOF spacecraft optimal trajectory planning and real-time attitude control: a deep neural network-based approach

This brief presents an integrated trajectory planning and attitude control framework for six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) hypersonic vehicle (HV) reentry flight. The proposed framework utilizes a bilevel structure incorporating desensitized trajectory optimization and deep neural network (DNN)-based control. In the upper level, a trajectory data set containing optimal system control and state trajectories is generated, while in the lower level control system, DNNs are constructed and trained using the pregenerated trajectory ensemble in order to represent the functional relationship between the optimized system states and controls. These well-trained networks are then used to produce optimal feedback actions online. A detailed simulation analysis was performed to validate the real-time applicability and the optimality of the designed bilevel framework. Moreover, a comparative analysis was also carried out between the proposed DNN-driven controller and other optimization-based techniques existing in related works. Our results verify the reliability of using the proposed bilevel design for the control of HV reentry flight in real time

Deterministic learning enhanced neutral network control of unmanned helicopter

In this article, a neural network-based tracking controller is developed for an unmanned helicopter system with guaranteed global stability in the presence of uncertain system dynamics. Due to the coupling and modeling uncertainties of the helicopter systems, neutral networks approximation techniques are employed to compensate the unknown dynamics of each subsystem. In order to extend the semiglobal stability achieved by conventional neural control to global stability, a switching mechanism is also integrated into the control design, such that the resulted neural controller is always valid without any concern on either initial conditions or range of state variables. In addition, deterministic learning is applied to the neutral network learning control, such that the adaptive neutral networks are able to store the learned knowledge that could be reused to construct neutral network controller with improved control performance. Simulation studies are carried out on a helicopter model to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control design

Continuous Recursive Sliding Mode Control for Hypersonic Flight Vehicle with Extended Disturbance Observer

A continuous recursive sliding mode controller (CRSMC) with extended disturbance observer (EDO) is proposed for the longitudinal dynamics of a generic hypersonic flight vehicle (HFV) in the presence of multiple uncertainties under control constraints. Firstly, sliding mode tracking controller based on a set of novel recursive sliding mode manifolds is presented, in which the chattering problem is reduced. The CRSMC possesses the merits of both nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller (NTSMC) and high-order sliding mode controller (HOSMC). Then antiwindup controller is designed according to the input constraints, which adds a dynamic compensation factor in the CRSMC. For the external disturbance of system, an improved disturbance observer based on extended disturbance observer (EDO) is designed. The external disturbance is estimated by the disturbance observer and the estimated value is regarded as compensation in CRSMC for disturbance. The stability of the proposed scheme is analyzed by Lyapunov function theory. Finally, numerical simulation is conducted for cruise flight dynamics of HFV, where altitude is 110000 ft, velocity is 15060 ft/s, and Mach is 15. Simulation results show the validity of the proposed approach

Nonlinear Constrained Adaptive Backstepping Tracking Control for a Hypersonic Vehicle with Uncertainty

The control problem of a flexible hypersonic vehicle is presented, where input saturation and aerodynamic uncertainty are considered. A control-oriented model including aerodynamic uncertainty is derived for simple controller design due to the nonlinearity and complexity of hypersonic vehicle model. Then it is separated into velocity subsystem and altitude subsystem. On the basis of the integration of robust adaptive control and backstepping technique, respective controller is designed for each subsystem, where an auxiliary signal provided by an additional dynamic system is used to compensate for the control saturation effect. Then to deal with the “explosion of terms” problem inherent in backstepping control, a novel first-order filter is proposed. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the adaptive backstepping control scheme