A survey on fractional order control techniques for unmanned aerial and ground vehicles

In recent years, numerous applications of science and engineering for modeling and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) systems based on fractional calculus have been realized. The extra fractional order derivative terms allow to optimizing the performance of the systems. The review presented in this paper focuses on the control problems of the UAVs and UGVs that have been addressed by the fractional order techniques over the last decade

A Motif-based Mission Planning Method for UAV Swarms Considering Dynamic Reconfiguration

Influenced by complex terrain conditions of combat environments and constrained by the level of communication technology, communication among unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is greatly restricted. In light of this situation, mission planning for UAV swarms under limited communication has become a difficult problem. This paper introduces motifs as the basic unit of configuration and proposes a motif-based mission planning method considering dynamic reconfiguration. This method uses multidimensional dynamic list scheduling algorithm to generate a mission planning scheme based on the motif-based swarm configuration solution. Then it incorporates order preserved operators with NSGA-III algorithm to find Pareto front solutions of all possible mission planning schemes. The feasibility of this mission planning method is validated through a case study

Autonomous Close Formation Flight Control with Fixed Wing and Quadrotor Test Beds

Autonomous formation flight is a key approach for reducing energy cost and managing traffic in future high density airspace. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has allowed low-budget and low-risk validation of autonomous formation flight concepts. This paper discusses the implementation and flight testing of nonlinear dynamic inversion (NLDI) controllers for close formation flight (CFF) using two distinct UAV platforms: a set of fixed wing aircraft named “Phastball” and a set of quadrotors named “NEO.” Experimental results show that autonomous CFF with approximately 5-wingspan separation is achievable with a pair of low-cost unmanned Phastball research aircraft. Simulations of the quadrotor flight also validate the design of the NLDI controller for the NEO quadrotors

Development of Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Effective Sense and Avoid Capabilities

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH