2,932 research outputs found
Accurate Tracking of Aggressive Quadrotor Trajectories using Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion and Differential Flatness
Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can execute aggressive (i.e.,
high-speed and high-acceleration) maneuvers have attracted significant
attention in the past few years. This paper focuses on accurate tracking of
aggressive quadcopter trajectories. We propose a novel control law for tracking
of position and yaw angle and their derivatives of up to fourth order,
specifically, velocity, acceleration, jerk, and snap along with yaw rate and
yaw acceleration. Jerk and snap are tracked using feedforward inputs for
angular rate and angular acceleration based on the differential flatness of the
quadcopter dynamics. Snap tracking requires direct control of body torque,
which we achieve using closed-loop motor speed control based on measurements
from optical encoders attached to the motors. The controller utilizes
incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI) for robust tracking of linear
and angular accelerations despite external disturbances, such as aerodynamic
drag forces. Hence, prior modeling of aerodynamic effects is not required. We
rigorously analyze the proposed control law through response analysis, and we
demonstrate it in experiments. The controller enables a quadcopter UAV to track
complex 3D trajectories, reaching speeds up to 12.9 m/s and accelerations up to
2.1g, while keeping the root-mean-square tracking error down to 6.6 cm, in a
flight volume that is roughly 18 m by 7 m and 3 m tall. We also demonstrate the
robustness of the controller by attaching a drag plate to the UAV in flight
tests and by pulling on the UAV with a rope during hover.Comment: To be published in IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.
Revision: new set of experiments at increased speed (up to 12.9 m/s), updated
controller design using quaternion representation, new video available at
https://youtu.be/K15lNBAKDC
Safe Learning of Quadrotor Dynamics Using Barrier Certificates
To effectively control complex dynamical systems, accurate nonlinear models
are typically needed. However, these models are not always known. In this
paper, we present a data-driven approach based on Gaussian processes that
learns models of quadrotors operating in partially unknown environments. What
makes this challenging is that if the learning process is not carefully
controlled, the system will go unstable, i.e., the quadcopter will crash. To
this end, barrier certificates are employed for safe learning. The barrier
certificates establish a non-conservative forward invariant safe region, in
which high probability safety guarantees are provided based on the statistics
of the Gaussian Process. A learning controller is designed to efficiently
explore those uncertain states and expand the barrier certified safe region
based on an adaptive sampling scheme. In addition, a recursive Gaussian Process
prediction method is developed to learn the complex quadrotor dynamics in
real-time. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of
the proposed approach.Comment: Submitted to ICRA 2018, 8 page
Some remarks on wheeled autonomous vehicles and the evolution of their control design
Recent investigations on the longitudinal and lateral control of wheeled
autonomous vehicles are reported. Flatness-based techniques are first
introduced via a simplified model. It depends on some physical parameters, like
cornering stiffness coefficients of the tires, friction coefficient of the
road, ..., which are notoriously difficult to identify. Then a model-free
control strategy, which exploits the flat outputs, is proposed. Those outputs
also depend on physical parameters which are poorly known, i.e., the vehicle
mass and inertia and the position of the center of gravity. A totally
model-free control law is therefore adopted. It employs natural output
variables, namely the longitudinal velocity and the lateral deviation of the
vehicle. This last method, which is easily understandable and implementable,
ensures a robust trajectory tracking problem in both longitudinal and lateral
dynamics. Several convincing computer simulations are displayed.Comment: 9th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (Leipzig,
Germany, 29.06.2016 - 01.07.2016
Flat systems, equivalence and trajectory generation
Flat systems, an important subclass of nonlinear control systems introduced
via differential-algebraic methods, are defined in a differential
geometric framework. We utilize the infinite dimensional geometry developed
by Vinogradov and coworkers: a control system is a diffiety, or more
precisely, an ordinary diffiety, i.e. a smooth infinite-dimensional manifold
equipped with a privileged vector field. After recalling the definition of
a Lie-Backlund mapping, we say that two systems are equivalent if they
are related by a Lie-Backlund isomorphism. Flat systems are those systems
which are equivalent to a controllable linear one. The interest of
such an abstract setting relies mainly on the fact that the above system
equivalence is interpreted in terms of endogenous dynamic feedback. The
presentation is as elementary as possible and illustrated by the VTOL
aircraft
Non-linear estimation is easy
Non-linear state estimation and some related topics, like parametric
estimation, fault diagnosis, and perturbation attenuation, are tackled here via
a new methodology in numerical differentiation. The corresponding basic system
theoretic definitions and properties are presented within the framework of
differential algebra, which permits to handle system variables and their
derivatives of any order. Several academic examples and their computer
simulations, with on-line estimations, are illustrating our viewpoint
Differential-Flatness and Control of Quadrotor(s) with a Payload Suspended through Flexible Cable(s)
We present the coordinate-free dynamics of three different quadrotor systems
: (a) single quadrotor with a point-mass payload suspended through a flexible
cable; (b) multiple quadrotors with a shared point-mass payload suspended
through flexible cables; and (c) multiple quadrotors with a shared rigid-body
payload suspended through flexible cables. We model the flexible cable(s) as a
finite series of links with spherical joints with mass concentrated at the end
of each link. The resulting systems are thus high-dimensional with high
degree-of-underactuation. For each of these systems, we show that the dynamics
are differentially-flat, enabling planning of dynamically feasible
trajectories. For the single quadrotor with a point-mass payload suspended
through a flexible cable with five links (16 degrees-of-freedom and 12
degrees-of-underactuation), we use the coordinate-free dynamics to develop a
geometric variation-based linearized equations of motion about a desired
trajectory. We show that a finite-horizon linear quadratic regulator can be
used to track a desired trajectory with a relatively large region of
attraction
Non-Linear Model Predictive Control with Adaptive Time-Mesh Refinement
In this paper, we present a novel solution for real-time, Non-Linear Model
Predictive Control (NMPC) exploiting a time-mesh refinement strategy. The
proposed controller formulates the Optimal Control Problem (OCP) in terms of
flat outputs over an adaptive lattice. In common approximated OCP solutions,
the number of discretization points composing the lattice represents a critical
upper bound for real-time applications. The proposed NMPC-based technique
refines the initially uniform time horizon by adding time steps with a sampling
criterion that aims to reduce the discretization error. This enables a higher
accuracy in the initial part of the receding horizon, which is more relevant to
NMPC, while keeping bounded the number of discretization points. By combining
this feature with an efficient Least Square formulation, our solver is also
extremely time-efficient, generating trajectories of multiple seconds within
only a few milliseconds. The performance of the proposed approach has been
validated in a high fidelity simulation environment, by using an UAV platform.
We also released our implementation as open source C++ code.Comment: In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and
Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR 2018
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