Serret-Frenet frame based on path following control for underactuated unmanned surface vehicles with dynamic uncertainties

The path following problem for an underactuated unmanned surface vehicle(USV) in the Serret-Frenet frame is addressed. The control system takes account of the uncertain influence induced by model perturbation, external disturbance, etc. By introducing the Serret-Frenet frame and global coordinate transformation, the control problem of underactuated system(a nonlinear system with single-input and ternate-output) is transformed into the control problem of actuated system(a single-input and single-output nonlinear system), which simplifies the controller design. A backstepping adaptive sliding mode controller(BADSMC)is proposed based on backstepping design technique, adaptive method and theory of dynamic slide model control(DSMC). Then, it is proven that the state of closed loop system is globally stabilized to the desired configuration with the proposed controller. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Following Control for a UUV using Temporary Path Generation Guidance

A path following control algorithm for an unmanned underwater vehicle（UUV） using temporary path generation guidance was proposed in this paper.Owing to different initial states of the vehicle,such as position and orientation,the path following control in the horizontal plane may yield a poor performance.To deal with the negative effect induced by initial states,a temporary path generation was presented based on the relationship between the original reference path and the vehicle’s initial states.With different relative positions between the vehicle and reference path,including out of straight lines,as well as inside and outside a circle,the related temporary paths guiding the vehicle to the reference path were able to be generated in real time.The vehicle was guided to steer along the temporary path until it reached the tangent point at the reference path,where the controller was designed using the input-output feedback linearization method.Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm is effective under the three different situations mentioned above.

PREDICTIVE CONTROL FOR OPTIMAL PATH TERRAIN FOLLOWING SYSTEM

In this paper output predictive algorithm is applied to the design of predictive controller for an optimal path terrain following system. In this way, the error of path tracking is decreased to a minimum degree simply and efficiently and the computation time for the optimal path is shortened greatly. Therefore, the real-time processing of the optimal path terrain following system is made to be very helpful.

Vector Field Based Sliding Mode Control of Curved Path Following for Miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Winds

In this paper, a curved path following control algorithm for miniature unmanned aerial vehicles（UAVs） in winds with constant speed and altitude is developed. Different to the widely considered line or orbit following, the curved path to be followed is defined in terms of the arc-length parameter, which can be straight lines, orbits, B-splines or any other curves provided that they are smooth. The proposed path following control algorithm, named by VF-SMC, is combining the vector field（VF） strategy with the sliding mode control（SMC） method. It is proven that the designed algorithm guarantees the tracking errors to be a bounded ball in the presence of winds, with the aid of the Lyapunov method and the BIBO stability. The algorithm is validated both in Matlab-based simulations and high-fidelity semi-physical simulations. In Matlab-based simulations, the proposed algorithm is verified for straight lines, orbits and B-splines to show its wide usage in different curves.The high-fidelity semi-physical simulation system is composed of actual autopilot controller, ground station and X-Plane flight simulator in-loop. In semi-physical simulations, the proposed algorithm is verified for B-spline path following under various gain parameters and wind conditions thoroughly.All experiments show the accuracy in curved path following and the excellent robustness to wind disturbances of the proposed algorithm.

Low-cost Position and Force Measurement System for Payload Transport Using UAVs

In recent years, multiple applications have emerged in the area of payload transport using unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs). This has attracted considerable interest among the scientific community, especially the cases involving one or several rotarywing UAVs. In this context, this work proposes a novel measurement system which can estimate the payload position and the force exerted by it on the UAV. This measurement system is low cost, easy to implement, and can be used either in indoor or outdoor environments(no sensorized laboratory is needed). The measurement system is validated statically and dynamically. In the first test, the estimations obtained by the system are compared with measurements produced by high-precision devices. In the second test, the system is used in real experiments to compare its performance with the ones obtained using known procedures. These experiments allowed to draw interesting conclusions on which future research can be based.