Submitting Campus

Daytona Beach

Department

Physical Sciences

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication/Presentation Date

9-2016

Abstract/Description

In a follow-up to our previous study, the current work examines the gust-induced “cone of uncertainty” in a small unmanned aerial vehicle’s (UAV) flight trajectory addressed in the context of safety assessments of UAV operations. Such analysis is a critical facet of the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS), particularly in terminal airspace. The paper describes a predictive, robust feedback-loop flight control model that is applicable to various classes of UAVs and unsteady flight-path scenarios. The control design presented in this paper extends previous research results by demonstrating asymptotic (zero steady-state error) altitude regulation control in the presence of unmodeled vertical wind gust disturbances. To address the practical considerations involved in small UAV applications with limited computational resources, the proposed control method is designed with a computationally simplistic structure, without the requirement of complex calculations or function approximators in the control loop. Proof of the theoretical result is summarized, and detailed numerical simulation results are provided, which demonstrate the capability of the proposed nonlinear control method to asymptotically reject wind gust disturbances and parameter variations in the state space model. Simulation comparisons with a standard linear control method are provided for completeness.

Location

Daejean, Korea

Paper Number

2016-0413

Number of Pages

10

Additional Information

The authors confirm that they, and/or their company or organization, hold copyright on all of the original material included in this paper. The authors also confirm that they have obtained permission, from the copyright holder of any third party material included in this paper, to publish it as part of their paper. The authors confirm that they give permission, or have obtained permission from the copyright holder of this paper, for the publication and distribution of this paper as part of the ICAS proceedings or as individual off-prints from the proceedings.

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