Global Exponential Attitude Tracking Controls on SO(3)

This paper presents four types of tracking control systems for the attitude dynamics of a rigid body. First, a smooth control system is constructed to track a given desired attitude trajectory, while guaranteeing almost semi-global exponential stability. It is extended to achieve global exponential stability by using a hybrid control scheme based on multiple configuration error functions. They are further extended to obtain robustness with respect to a fixed disturbance using an integral term. The resulting robust, global exponential stability for attitude tracking is the unique contribution of this paper, and these are developed directly on the special orthogonal group to avoid singularities of local coordinates, or ambiguities associated with quaternions. The desirable features are illustrated by numerical examples

Modeling for Control of Symmetric Aerial Vehicles Subjected to Aerodynamic Forces

This paper participates in the development of a unified approach to the control of aerial vehicles with extended flight envelopes. More precisely, modeling for control purposes of a class of thrust-propelled aerial vehicles subjected to lift and drag aerodynamic forces is addressed assuming a rotational symmetry of the vehicle's shape about the thrust force axis. A condition upon aerodynamic characteristics that allows one to recast the control problem into the simpler case of a spherical vehicle is pointed out. Beside showing how to adapt nonlinear controllers developed for this latter case, the paper extends a previous work by the authors in two directions. First, the 3D case is addressed whereas only motions in a single vertical plane was considered. Secondly, the family of models of aerodynamic forces for which the aforementioned transformation holds is enlarged.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

An approximation algorithm for the solution of the nonlinear Lane-Emden type equations arising in astrophysics using Hermite functions collocation method

In this paper we propose a collocation method for solving some well-known classes of Lane-Emden type equations which are nonlinear ordinary differential equations on the semi-infinite domain. They are categorized as singular initial value problems. The proposed approach is based on a Hermite function collocation (HFC) method. To illustrate the reliability of the method, some special cases of the equations are solved as test examples. The new method reduces the solution of a problem to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. Hermite functions have prefect properties that make them useful to achieve this goal. We compare the present work with some well-known results and show that the new method is efficient and applicable.Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures, Published in "Computer Physics Communications

Basins of attraction in a harmonically excited spherical bubble model

Basins of the periodic attractors of a harmonically excited single spherical gas/vapour bubble were examined numerically. As cavitation occurs in the low pressure level regions in engineering applications, the ambient pressure was set slightly below the vapour pressure. In this case the system is not strictly dissipative and the bubble can grow infinitely for sufficiently high pressure amplitudes and/or starting from large initial bubble radii, consequently, the stable bubble motion is not guaranteed. For moderate excitation pressure amplitudes the exact basins of attraction were determined via the computation of the invariant manifolds of the unstable solutions. At sufficiently large amplitudes transversal intersection of the manifolds can take place, indicating the presence of a Smale horseshoe map and the chaotic behaviour of system. The incidence of this kind of chaotic motion was predicted by the small parameter perturbation method of Melnikov

Closed-form estimates of the domain of attraction for nonlinear systems via fuzzy-polynomial models

In this work, the domain of attraction of the origin of a nonlinear system is estimated in closed-form via level sets with polynomial boundary, iteratively computed. In particular, the domain of attraction is expanded from a previous estimate, such as, for instance, a classical Lyapunov level set. With the use of fuzzy-polynomial models, the domain-of-attraction analysis can be carried out via sum of squares optimization and an iterative algorithm. The result is a function wich bounds the domain of attraction, free from the usual restriction of being positive and decrescent in all the interior of its level sets