Robust fixed-time flight controller for a dual-system convertible UAV in the cruise mode

This paper investigates the attitude tracking control problem for the cruise mode of a dual-system convertible unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)in the presence of parameter uncertainties,unmodeled uncertainties and wind disturbances.First,a fixed-time disturbance observer(FXDO)based on the bi-limit homogeneity theory is designed to estimate the lumped disturbance of the convertible UAV model.Then,a fixed-time integral sliding mode control(FXISMC)is combined with the FXDO to achieve strong robustness and chattering reduction.Bi-limit homogeneity theory and Lyapunov theory are applied to provide detailed proof of the fixed-time stability.Finally,numerical simulation experimental results verify the robustness of the proposed algorithm to model parameter uncertainties and wind disturbances.In addition,the proposed algorithm is deployed in a open-source UAV autopilot and its effectiveness is further demonstrated by hardware-in-the-loop experimental results.

A Dual-Cluster-Head Based Medium Access Control for Large-Scale UAV Ad-Hoc Networks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)ad hoc network has achieved significant growth for its flexibility,extensibility,and high deployability in recent years.The application of clustering scheme for UAV ad hoc network is imperative to enhance the performance of throughput and energy efficiency.In conventional clustering scheme,a single cluster head(CH)is always assigned in each cluster.However,this method has some weaknesses such as overload and premature death of CH when the number of UAVs increased.In order to solve this problem,we propose a dual-cluster-head based medium access control(DCHMAC)scheme for large-scale UAV networks.In DCHMAC,two CHs are elected to manage resource allocation and data forwarding cooperatively.Specifically,two CHs work on different channels.One of CH is used for intra-cluster communication and the other one is for inter-cluster communication.A Markov chain model is developed to analyse the throughput of the network.Simulation result shows that compared with FM-MAC(flying ad hoc networks multi-channel MAC,FM-MAC),DCHMAC improves the throughput by approximately 20%~50%and prolongs the network lifetime by approximately 40%.

Intelligent PID Control Method for Quadrotor UAV with Serial Humanoid Intelligence

Quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)are widely used in inspection,agriculture,express delivery,and other fields owing to their low cost and high flexibility.However,the current UAV control system has shortcomings such as poor control accuracy and weak anti-interference ability to a certain extent.To address the control problem of a four-rotor UAV,we propose a method to enhance the controller’s accuracy by considering underactuated dynamics,nonlinearities,and external disturbances.A mathematical model is constructed based on the flight principles of the quadrotor UAV.We develop a control algorithm that combines humanoid intelligence with a cascade Proportional-Integral-Derivative(PID)approach.This algorithm incorporates the rate of change of the error into the inputs of the cascade PID controller,uses both the error and its rate of change as characteristic variables of the UAV’s control system,and employs a hyperbolic tangent function to improve the outer-loop control.The result is a double closed-loop intelligent PID(DCLIPID)control algorithm.Through MATLAB numerical simulation tests,it is found that the DCLIPID algorithm reduces the rise time by 0.5 s and the number of oscillations by 2 times compared to the string PID algorithm when a unit step signal is used as input.A UAV flight test was designed for comparison with the serial PID algorithm,and it was found that when the UAV planned the trajectory autonomously,the errors in the X-,Y-,and Z-directions were reduced by 0.22,0.21,and 0.31 m,respectively.Under the interference environment of artificial wind about 3.6 m·s^(-1),the UAV hovering error in X-,Y-,and Z-directions are 0.24,0.42,and 0.27 m,respectively.The simulation and experimental results show that the control method of humanoid intelligence and cascade PID can improve the real-time,control accuracy and anti-interference ability of the UAV,and the method has a certain reference value for the research in the field of UAV control.

Observer-based backstepping longitudinal control for carrier-based UAV with actuator faults

The paper presents the longitudinal control for the carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system with unmeasured states, actuator faults, control input constraints, and external disturbances. By combining output state observer, adaptive fuzzy control, and constraint backstepping technology, a robust fault tolerant control approach is proposed. An output state observer with fuzzy logic systems is developed to estimate unmeasured states, and command filters rather than differentiations of virtual control law are used to solve the computational complexity problem in traditional backstepping. Additionally, a robust term is introduced to offset the fuzzy adaptive estimation error and external disturbance, and an appropriate fault controller structure with matching conditions obtained from fault compensation is proposed. Based on the Lyapunov theory, the designed control program is illustrated to guarantee that all the closed-loop signals of the given system are bounded, and the output errors converge to a small neighborhood of zero. A carrier-based UAV nonlinear longitudinal model is employed to testify the feasibility and validity of the control scheme. The simulation results show that all the controllers can perform at a satisfactory level of reference tracking despite the existence of unknown aerodynamic parameters and actuator faults. © 2017 Beijing Institute of Aerospace Information.

A Software-in-the-Loop Implementation of Adaptive Formation Control for Fixed-Wing UAVs

This paper discusses the design and software-in-theloop implementation of adaptive formation controllers for fixedwing unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) with parametric uncertainty in their structure, namely uncertain mass and inertia. In fact, when aiming at autonomous flight, such parameters cannot assumed to be known as they might vary during the mission(e.g.depending on the payload). Modeling and autopilot design for such autonomous fixed-wing UAVs are presented. The modeling is implemented in Matlab, while the autopilot is based on ArduPilot, a popular open-source autopilot suite. Specifically, the ArduP ilot functionalities are emulated in Matlab according to the Ardupilot documentation and code, which allows us to perform software-in-the-loop simulations of teams of UAVs embedded with actual autopilot protocols. An overview of realtime path planning, trajectory tracking and formation control resulting from the proposed platform is given. The software-inthe-loop simulations show the capability of achieving different UAV formations while handling uncertain mass and inertia.

Tradeoff Analysis of Factors Affecting Longitudinal Carrier Landing Performance for Small UAV Based on Backstepping Controller

Tradeoff analysis of the factors,including external environment and unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)aerodynamic attributes,which affect longitudinal carrier landing performance,is important for small UAV.First,small UAV longitudinal carrier landing system is established,as well as the nonlinear dynamics and kinematics model,and then the longitudinal flight control system using backstepping technology with minimum information about the aerodynamic is designed.To assess the landing performance,a variety of influencing factors are considered,resulting in the constraints of aerodynamic attributes of carrier UAV.The simulation results show that the severe sea condition has the greatest influence on landing dispersion,while air wake is the primary factor on impact velocity.Among the longitudinal aerodynamic parameters,the lift curve slope is the most important factor affecting the landing performance,and increasing lift curve slope can improve the landing performance significantly.A better system performance will be achieved when the lift curve slope is larger than 2per radian.

Robust Tracking Control of Uncertain MIMO Nonlinear Systems with Application to UAVs

In this paper, we consider the robust adaptive tracking control of uncertain multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear systems with input saturation and unknown external disturbance. The nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) is employed to tackle the system uncertainty as well as the external disturbance. To handle the input saturation, an auxiliary system is constructed as a saturation compensator. By using the backstepping technique and the dynamic surface method, a robust adaptive tracking control scheme is developed. The closed-loop system is proved to be uniformly ultimately bounded thorough Lyapunov stability analysis. Simulation results with application to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust control scheme. © 2014 Chinese Association of Automation.

A Trajectory Prediction Based Intelligent Handover Control Method in UAV Cellular Networks

The airborne base station(ABS) can provide wireless coverage to the ground in unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) cellular networks.When mobile users move among adjacent ABSs,the measurement information reported by a single mobile user is used to trigger the handover mechanism.This handover mechanism lacks the consideration of movement state of mobile users and the location relationship between mobile users,which may lead to handover misjudgments and even communication interrupts.In this paper,we propose an intelligent handover control method in UAV cellular networks.Firstly,we introduce a deep learning model to predict the user trajectories.This prediction model learns the movement behavior of mobile users from the measurement information and analyzes the positional relations between mobile users such as avoiding collision and accommodating fellow pedestrians.Secondly,we propose a handover decision method,which can calculate the users' corresponding receiving power based on the predicted location and the characteristic of air-to-ground channel,to make handover decisions accurately.Finally,we use realistic data sets with thousands of non-linear trajectories to verify the basic functions and performance of our proposed intelligent handover controlmethod.The simulation results show that the handover success rate of the proposed method is 8% higher than existing methods.

Quadcopter UAV Modeling and Automatic Flight Control Design

The mathematical model of quadcopter-unmanned aerial vehicle （UAV） is derived by using two approaches： One is the Newton-Euler approach which is formulated using classical meehanics; and other is the Euler-Lagrange approach which describes the model in terms of kinetic （translational and rotational） and potential energy. The proposed quadcopter＇s non-linear model is incorporated with aero-dynamical forces generated by air resistance, which helps aircraft to exhibits more realistic behavior while hovering. Based on the obtained model, the suitable control strategy is developed, under which two effective flight control systems are developed. Each control system is created by cascading the proportional-derivative （PD） and T-S fuzzy controllers that are equipped with six and twelve feedback signals individually respectively to ensure better tracking, stabilization, and response. Both pro- posed flight control designs are then implemented with the quadcopter model respectively and multitudinous simulations are conducted using MATLAB/Simulink to analyze the tracking performance of the quadcopter model at various reference inputs and trajectories.

PID-type fault-tolerant prescribed performance control of fixed-wing UAV

This paper introduces a fault-tolerant control(FTC)design for a faulty fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV).To constrain tracking errors against actuator faults,error constraint inequalities are first transformed to a new set of variables based on prescribed performance functions.Then,the commonly used and powerful proportional-integral-derivative(PID)control concept is employed to filter the transformed error variables.To handle the fault-induced nonlinear terms,a composite learning algorithm consisting of neural network and disturbance observer is incorporated for increasing flight safety.It is shown by Lyapunov stability analysis that the tracking errors are strictly constrained within the specified error bounds.Experimental results are presented to verify the feasibility of the developed FTC scheme.

Aerodynamic Effects Compensation on Multi-Rotor UAVs Based on a Neural Network Control Allocation Approach

This paper shows that the aerodynamic effects can be compensated in a quadrotor system by means of a control allocation approach using neural networks.Thus,the system performance can be improved by replacing the classic allocation matrix,without using the aerodynamic inflow equations directly.The network training is performed offline,which requires low computational power.The target system is a Parrot MAMBO drone whose flight control is composed of PD-PID controllers followed by the proposed neural network control allocation algorithm.Such a quadrotor is particularly susceptible to the aerodynamics effects of interest to this work,because of its small size.We compared the mechanical torques commanded by the flight controller,i.e.,the control input,to those actually generated by the actuators and established at the aircraft.It was observed that the proposed neural network was able to closely match them,while the classic allocation matrix could not achieve that.The allocation error was also determined in both cases.Furthermore,the closed-loop performance also improved with the use of the proposed neural network control allocation,as well as the quality of the thrust and torque signals,in which we perceived a much less noisy behavior.

Remote Control and Telemetry System for Large-scale Model Test at Sea

Physical testing of large-scale ship models at sea is a new experimental method.It is a cheap and reliable way to research the environment adaptability of a ship in complex and extreme wave conditions.It is necessary to have a stable experimental system for the test.Since the experimental area is large, a remote control system and a telemetry system are essential, and were designed by the authors.An experiment was conducted on the Songhuajiang River to test the systems.The relationship between the model's speed and its electromotor's revolutions was also measured during the model test.The results showed that the two systems make it possible to carry out large-scale model tests at sea.

Dynamic affine formation control of networked under-actuated quad-rotor UAVs with three-dimensional patterns

This paper focuses on the solution to the dynamic affine formation control problem for multiple networked underactuated quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)to achieve a configuration that preserves collinearity and ratios of distances for a target configuration.In particular,it is investigated that the quad-rotor UAVs are steered to track a reference linear velocity while maintaining a desired three-dimensional target formation.Firstly,by integrating the properties of the affine transformation and the stress matrix,the design of the target formation is convenient and applicable for various three-dimensional geometric patterns.Secondly,a distributed control method is proposed under a hierarchical framework.By introducing an intermediary control input for each quad-rotor UAV in the position loop,the necessary thrust input and the desired attitude are extracted.In the attitude loop,the desired attitude represented by the unit quaternion is tracked by the designed torque input.Both conditions of linear velocity unavailability and mutual collision avoidance are also tackled.In terms of Lyapunov theory,it is prooved that the overall closed-loop error system is asymptotically stable.Finally,two illustrative examples are simulated to validate the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.

Sensor fault-tolerant observer applied in UAV anti-skid braking control under control input constraint

This paper proposes a method for addressing the problem of sensor fault-tolerant control (FTC) for anti-skid braking systems (ABSs). When the wheel velocity sensor of the ABS for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) becomes faulty, wheel velocity failure and feedback instability may occur. Firstly, a fault diagnosis and isolation (FDI) method based on a sliding mode observer approach is introduced to detect and isolate the fault of the sensor. When the wheel velocity sensor is in healthy conditions, the observer works in a diagnosis mode. If faults occur in the sensor, it acts as a wheel velocity estimator. Secondly, an FTC strategy, adopting a feedback compensation structure, is designed with input control constraints. In addition, based on the FDI result, a terminal sliding mode (TSM) controller is designed to guarantee that slip-ratio tracks its appropriate reference values in situations where runways change conditions during landing. The control system switches automatically from control using a wheel velocity sensor to sensorless control mode, so the observer-based FTC scheme is established. It is logical that the ABS keeps observed-state and remains stable when the wheel velocity sensor is broken and during external disturbance. Finally, simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 1990-2011 Beijing Institute of Aerospace Information.

Two-layer formation-containment fault-tolerant control of fixed-wing UAV swarm for dynamic target tracking

This paper tackles the formation-containment control problem of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)swarm with model uncertainties for dynamic target tracking in three-dimensional space in the faulty case of UAVs’actuator and sensor.The fixed-wing UAV swarm under consideration is organized as a“multi-leader-multi-follower”structure,in which only several leaders can obtain the dynamic target information while others only receive the neighbors’information through the communication network.To simultaneously realize the formation,containment,and dynamic target tracking,a two-layer control framework is adopted to decouple the problem into two subproblems:reference trajectory generation and trajectory tracking.In the upper layer,a distributed finite-time estimator(DFTE)is proposed to generate each UAV’s reference trajectory in accordance with the control objective.Subsequently,a distributed composite robust fault-tolerant trajectory tracking controller is developed in the lower layer,where a novel adaptive extended super-twisting(AESTW)algorithm with a finite-time extended state observer(FTESO)is involved in solving the robust trajectory tracking control problem under model uncertainties,actuator,and sensor faults.The proposed controller simultaneously guarantees rapidness and enhances the system’s robustness with fewer chattering effects.Finally,corresponding simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and competitiveness of the proposed two-layer fault-tolerant cooperative control scheme.

Backstepping sliding mode control with self recurrent wavelet neural network observer for a novel coaxial twelve-rotor UAV

The robust attitude control for a novel coaxial twelve-rotor UAV which has much greater payload capacity,higher drive capability and damage tolerance than a quad-rotor UAV is studied. Firstly,a dynamical and kinematical model for the coaxial twelve-rotor UAV is designed. Considering model uncertainties and external disturbances,a robust backstepping sliding mode control( BSMC) with self recurrent wavelet neural network( SRWNN) method is proposed as the attitude controller for the coaxial twelve-rotor. A combinative algorithm of backstepping control and sliding mode control has simplified design procedures with much stronger robustness benefiting from advantages of both controllers. SRWNN as the uncertainty observer is able to estimate the lumped uncertainties effectively.Then the uniformly ultimate stability of the twelve-rotor system is proved by Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally,the validity of the proposed robust control method adopted in the twelve-rotor UAV under model uncertainties and external disturbances are demonstrated via numerical simulations and twelve-rotor prototype experiments.

Constrained Moving Path Following Control for UAV With Robust Control Barrier Function

This paper studies the moving path following(MPF)problem for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)under output constraints and wind disturbances.The vehicle is required to converge to a reference path moving with respect to the inertial frame,while the path following error is not expected to violate the predefined boundaries.Differently from existing moving path following guidance laws,the proposed method removes complex geometric transformation by formulating the moving path following problem into a second-order time-varying control problem.A nominal moving path following guidance law is designed with disturbances and their derivatives estimated by high-order disturbance observers.To guarantee that the path following error will not exceed the prescribed bounds,a robust control barrier function is developed and incorporated into controller design with quadratic program based framework.The proposed method does not require the initial position of the UAV to be within predefined boundaries.And the safety margin concept makes error-constraint be respected even if in a noisy environment.The proposed guidance law is validated through numerical simulations of shipboard landing and hardware-in-theloop(HIL)experiments.

Modeling and Robust Backstepping Sliding Mode Control with Adaptive RBFNN for a Novel Coaxial Eight-rotor UAV

This paper focuses on the robust attitude control of a novel coaxial eight-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) which has higher drive capability as well as greater robustness against disturbances than quad-rotor UAV. The dynamical and kinematical model for the coaxial eight-rotor UAV is developed, which has never been proposed before. A robust backstepping sliding mode controller (BSMC) with adaptive radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is proposed to control the attitude of the eightrotor UAV in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances. The combinative method of backstepping control and sliding mode control has improved robustness and simplified design procedure benefiting from the advantages of both controllers. The adaptive RBFNN as the uncertainty observer can effectively estimate the lumped uncertainties without the knowledge of their bounds for the eight-rotor UAV. Additionally, the adaptive learning algorithm, which can learn the parameters of RBFNN online and compensate the approximation error, is derived using Lyapunov stability theorem. And then the uniformly ultimate stability of the eight-rotor system is proved. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the validity of the proposed robust control method adopted in the novel coaxial eight-rotor UAV in the case of model uncertainties and external disturbances. © 2014 Chinese Association of Automation.

Congestion Control Using In-Network Telemetry for Lossless Datacenters

In the Ethernet lossless Data Center Networks (DCNs) deployedwith Priority-based Flow Control (PFC), the head-of-line blocking problemis still difficult to prevent due to PFC triggering under burst trafficscenarios even with the existing congestion control solutions. To addressthe head-of-line blocking problem of PFC, we propose a new congestioncontrol mechanism. The key point of Congestion Control Using In-NetworkTelemetry for Lossless Datacenters (ICC) is to use In-Network Telemetry(INT) technology to obtain comprehensive congestion information, which isthen fed back to the sender to adjust the sending rate timely and accurately.It is possible to control congestion in time, converge to the target rate quickly,and maintain a near-zero queue length at the switch when using ICC. Weconducted Network Simulator-3 (NS-3) simulation experiments to test theICC’s performance. When compared to Congestion Control for Large-ScaleRDMA Deployments (DCQCN), TIMELY: RTT-based Congestion Controlfor the Datacenter (TIMELY), and Re-architecting Congestion Managementin Lossless Ethernet (PCN), ICC effectively reduces PFC pause messages andFlow Completion Time (FCT) by 47%, 56%, 34%, and 15.3×, 14.8×, and11.2×, respectively.

Nonlinear direct data-driven control for UAV formation flight system

This paper proposes the nonlinear direct data-driven control from theoretical analysis and practical engineering,i.e.,unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)formation flight system.Firstly,from the theoretical point of view,consider one nonlinear closedloop system with a nonlinear plant and nonlinear feed-forward controller simultaneously.To avoid the complex identification process for that nonlinear plant,a nonlinear direct data-driven control strategy is proposed to design that nonlinear feed-forward controller only through the input-output measured data sequence directly,whose detailed explicit forms are model inverse method and approximated analysis method.Secondly,from the practical point of view,after reviewing the UAV formation flight system,nonlinear direct data-driven control is applied in designing the formation controller,so that the followers can track the leader’s desired trajectory during one small time instant only through solving one data fitting problem.Since most natural phenomena have nonlinear properties,the direct method must be the better one.Corresponding system identification and control algorithms are required to be proposed for those nonlinear systems,and the direct nonlinear controller design is the purpose of this paper.