Tail motion model identification for control design of an unmanned helicopter

This paper explains the methodology developed to design the yaw control system (heading control system) of the α-SAC UAV. The problem of modeling and controlling the tail motion of this UAV along a desired trajectory is considered. First, the response data of the system are collected during special flight test and a linear time invariant model is extracted by identification techniques. Then, the control system is designed and implemented using a PID feedback/feedforward control method. The technique is tested in simulation and validated in the autonomous flight of the small scale helicopter.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

SwarMAV: A Swarm of Miniature Aerial Vehicles

As the MAV (Micro or Miniature Aerial Vehicles) field matures, we expect to see that the platform's degree of autonomy, the information exchange, and the coordination with other manned and unmanned actors, will become at least as crucial as its aerodynamic design. The project described in this paper explores some aspects of a particularly exciting possible avenue of development: an autonomous swarm of MAVs which exploits its inherent reliability (through redundancy), and its ability to exchange information among the members, in order to cope with a dynamically changing environment and achieve its mission. We describe the successful realization of a prototype experimental platform weighing only 75g, and outline a strategy for the automatic design of a suitable controller

Design, Modeling, and Control of a Flying-Insect-Inspired Quadrotor with Rotatable Arms

Aerial manipulation and delivery using quadrotors are becoming more and more popular in recent years. However, the displacement of the center of gravity (CoG) is a common issue experienced by these applications due to various eccentric payloads carried. Conventional quadrotors with eccentric payloads are usually stabilized by robust control strategies through adjusting rotation speeds of BLDC motors, which has negative effects on stability and energy efficiency of quadrotors. In this thesis, a flying-insect-inspired quadrotor with rotatable arms is proposed. With four rotatable arms, the proposed quadrotor can automatically estimate the displacement of the CoG and drive the four arms to their optimal positions during flight. In this way, the proposed quadrotor can move its symmetric center to the CoG of the quadrotor with the eccentric payload to increase its stability and energy efficiency. The design, dynamics modeling, and control strategy of the proposed quadrotor are presented in this thesis. Both calculation and experiment results show that the proposed quadrotor with rotatable arms has better flight performance of stability and energy efficiency than the conventional quadrotor with fixed arms

Aerial Vehicles

This book contains 35 chapters written by experts in developing techniques for making aerial vehicles more intelligent, more reliable, more flexible in use, and safer in operation.It will also serve as an inspiration for further improvement of the design and application of aeral vehicles. The advanced techniques and research described here may also be applicable to other high-tech areas such as robotics, avionics, vetronics, and space

Root Locus Based Autopilot PIDâs Parameters Tuning for a Flying Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

This paper depicts the applications of classical root locus based PID control to the longitudinal flight dynamics of a Flying Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, P15035, developed by Monash Aerobotics Research Group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University, VIC, Australia. The challenge associated with our UAV is related to the fact that all of its motions and attitude variables are controlled by two independently actuated ailerons, namely elevons, as its primary control surfaces along with throttle, in contrast to most conventional aircraft which have rudder, aileron and elevator. The reason to choose PID control is mainly due to its simplicity and availability. Since our current autopilot, MP2028, only provides PID control law for its flight control, our design result can be implemented straight away for PID parameters' tuning and practical flight controls. Simulations indicate that a well-tuned PID autopilot has successfully demonstrated acceptable closed loop performances for both pitch and altitude loops. In general, full PID control configuration is the recommended control mode to overcome the adverse impact of disturbances. Moreover, by utilising this control scheme, overshoots have been successfully suppressed into a certain reasonable level. Furthermore, it has been proven that exact pole-zero cancellations due to derivative controls in both pitch and altitude loop to eliminate the effects of integral action -contributed by open loop transfer functions of elevon-average-to-pitch as well as pitch-to-pitch-rate- is impractica

Design, Development and Implementation of Intelligent Algorithms to Increase Autonomy of Quadrotor Unmanned Missions

This thesis presents the development and implementation of intelligent algorithms to increase autonomy of unmanned missions for quadrotor type UAVs. A six-degree-of freedom dynamic model of a quadrotor is developed in Matlab/Simulink in order to support the design of control algorithms previous to real-time implementation. A dynamic inversion based control architecture is developed to minimize nonlinearities and improve robustness when the system is driven outside bounds of nominal design. The design and the implementation of the control laws are described. An immunity-based architecture is introduced for monitoring quadrotor health and its capabilities for detecting abnormal conditions are successfully demonstrated through flight testing. A vision-based navigation scheme is developed to enhance the quadrotor autonomy under GPS denied environments. An optical flow sensor and a laser range finder are used within an Extended Kalman Filter for position estimation and its estimation performance is analyzed by comparing against measurements from a GPS module. Flight testing results are presented where the performances are analyzed, showing a substantial increase of controllability and tracking when the developed algorithms are used under dynamically changing environments. Healthy flights, flights with failures, flight with GPS-denied navigation and post-failure recovery are presented