Linear and Nonlinear Control of Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopters

Linear and Nonlinear Control of Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopters PDF Author: Ioannis A. Raptis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789400700246
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
There has been significant interest for designing flight controllers for small-scale unmanned helicopters. Such helicopters preserve all the physical attributes of their full-scale counterparts, being at the same time more agile and dexterous. This book presents a comprehensive and well justified analysis for designing flight controllers for small-scale unmanned helicopters guarantying flight stability and tracking accuracy. The design of the flight controller is a critical and integral part for developing an autonomous helicopter platform. Helicopters are underactuated, highly nonlinear systems with significant dynamic coupling that needs to be considered and accounted for during controller design and implementation. Most reliable mathematical tools for analysis of control systems relate to modern control theory. Modern control techniques are model-based since the controller architecture depends on the dynamic representation of the system to be controlled. Therefore, the flight controller design problem is tightly connected with the helicopter modeling. This book provides a step-by-step methodology for designing, evaluating and implementing efficient flight controllers for small-scale helicopters. Design issues that are analytically covered include: • An illustrative presentation of both linear and nonlinear models of ordinary differential equations representing the helicopter dynamics. A detailed presentation of the helicopter equations of motion is given for the derivation of both model types. In addition, an insightful presentation of the main rotor's mechanism, aerodynamics and dynamics is also provided. Both model types are of low complexity, physically meaningful and capable of encapsulating the dynamic behavior of a large class of small-scale helicopters. • An illustrative and rigorous derivation of mathematical control algorithms based on both the linear and nonlinear representation of the helicopter dynamics. Flight controller designs guarantee that the tracking objectives of the helicopter's inertial position (or velocity) and heading are achieved. Each controller is carefully constructed by considering the small-scale helicopter's physical flight capabilities. Concepts of advanced stability analysis are used to improve the efficiency and reduce the complexity of the flight control system. Controller designs are derived in both continuous time and discrete time covering discretization issues, which emerge from the implementation of the control algorithm using microprocessors. • Presentation of the most powerful, practical and efficient methods for extracting the helicopter model parameters based on input/output responses, collected by the measurement instruments. This topic is of particular importance for real-life implementation of the control algorithms. This book is suitable for students and researches interested in the development and the mathematical derivation of flight controllers for small-scale helicopters. Background knowledge in modern control is required.

Linear and Nonlinear Control of Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopters

Linear and Nonlinear Control of Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopters PDF Author: Ioannis A. Raptis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400700237
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
There has been significant interest for designing flight controllers for small-scale unmanned helicopters. Such helicopters preserve all the physical attributes of their full-scale counterparts, being at the same time more agile and dexterous. This book presents a comprehensive and well justified analysis for designing flight controllers for small-scale unmanned helicopters guarantying flight stability and tracking accuracy. The design of the flight controller is a critical and integral part for developing an autonomous helicopter platform. Helicopters are underactuated, highly nonlinear systems with significant dynamic coupling that needs to be considered and accounted for during controller design and implementation. Most reliable mathematical tools for analysis of control systems relate to modern control theory. Modern control techniques are model-based since the controller architecture depends on the dynamic representation of the system to be controlled. Therefore, the flight controller design problem is tightly connected with the helicopter modeling. This book provides a step-by-step methodology for designing, evaluating and implementing efficient flight controllers for small-scale helicopters. Design issues that are analytically covered include: • An illustrative presentation of both linear and nonlinear models of ordinary differential equations representing the helicopter dynamics. A detailed presentation of the helicopter equations of motion is given for the derivation of both model types. In addition, an insightful presentation of the main rotor's mechanism, aerodynamics and dynamics is also provided. Both model types are of low complexity, physically meaningful and capable of encapsulating the dynamic behavior of a large class of small-scale helicopters. • An illustrative and rigorous derivation of mathematical control algorithms based on both the linear and nonlinear representation of the helicopter dynamics. Flight controller designs guarantee that the tracking objectives of the helicopter's inertial position (or velocity) and heading are achieved. Each controller is carefully constructed by considering the small-scale helicopter's physical flight capabilities. Concepts of advanced stability analysis are used to improve the efficiency and reduce the complexity of the flight control system. Controller designs are derived in both continuous time and discrete time covering discretization issues, which emerge from the implementation of the control algorithm using microprocessors. • Presentation of the most powerful, practical and efficient methods for extracting the helicopter model parameters based on input/output responses, collected by the measurement instruments. This topic is of particular importance for real-life implementation of the control algorithms. This book is suitable for students and researches interested in the development and the mathematical derivation of flight controllers for small-scale helicopters. Background knowledge in modern control is required.

Linear and Nonlinear Control of Unmanned Rotorcraft

Linear and Nonlinear Control of Unmanned Rotorcraft PDF Author: Ioannis A. Raptis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
ABSTRACT: The main characteristic attribute of the rotorcraft is the use of rotary wings to produce the thrust force necessary for motion. Therefore, rotorcraft have an advantage relative to fixed wing aircraft because they do not require any relative velocity to produce aerodynamic forces. Rotorcraft have been used in a wide range of missions of civilian and military applications. Particular interest has been concentrated in applications related to search and rescue in environments that impose restrictions to human presence and interference. The main representative of the rotorcraft family is the helicopter. Small scale helicopters retain all the flight characteristics and physical principles of their full scale counterpart. In addition, they are naturally more agile and dexterous compared to full scale helicopters. Their flight capabilities, reduced size and cost have monopolized the attention of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles research community for the development of low cost and efficient autonomous flight platforms. Helicopters are highly nonlinear systems with significant dynamic coupling. In general, they are considered to be much more unstable than fixed wing aircraft and constant control must be sustained at all times. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the challenging design problem of autonomous flight controllers for small scale helicopters. A typical flight control system is composed of a mathematical algorithm that produces the appropriate command signals required to perform autonomous flight. Modern control techniques are model based, since the controller architecture depends on the dynamic description of the system to be controlled. This principle applies to the helicopter as well, therefore, the flight control problem is tightly connected with the helicopter modeling. The helicopter dynamics can be represented by both linear and nonlinear models of ordinary differential equations. Theoretically, the validity of the linear models is restricted in a certain region around a specific operating point. Contrary, nonlinear models provide a global description of the helicopter dynamics. This work proposes several detailed control designs based on both dynamic representations of small scale helicopters. The controller objective is for the helicopter to autonomously track predefined position (or velocity) and heading reference trajectories. The controllers performance is evaluated using X-Plane, a realistic and commercially available flight simulator.

Modeling, Control and Coordination of Helicopter Systems

Modeling, Control and Coordination of Helicopter Systems PDF Author: Beibei Ren
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461415632
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Modeling, Control and Coordination of Helicopter Systems provides a comprehensive treatment of helicopter systems, ranging from related nonlinear flight dynamic modeling and stability analysis to advanced control design for single helicopter systems, and also covers issues related to the coordination and formation control of multiple helicopter systems to achieve high performance tasks. Ensuring stability in helicopter flight is a challenging problem for nonlinear control design and development. This book is a valuable reference on modeling, control and coordination of helicopter systems,providing readers with practical solutions for the problems that still plague helicopter system design and implementation. Readers will gain a complete picture of helicopters at the systems level, as well as a better understanding of the technical intricacies involved.

Control-oriented Modeling and System Identification for Nonlinear Trajectory Tracking Control of a Small-scale Unmanned Helicopter

Control-oriented Modeling and System Identification for Nonlinear Trajectory Tracking Control of a Small-scale Unmanned Helicopter PDF Author: Sepehr Pourrezaei Khaligh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drone aircraft
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Model-based control design of small-scale helicopters involves considerable challenges due to their nonlinear and underactuated dynamics with strong couplings between the different degrees-of-freedom (DOFs). Most nonlinear model-based multi-input multi-output (MIMO) control approaches require the dynamic model of the system to be affine-in-control and fully actuated. Since the existing formulations for helicopter nonlinear dynamic model do not meet these requirements, these MIMO approaches cannot be applied for control of helicopters and control designs in the literature mostly use the linearized model of the helicopter dynamics around different trim conditions instead of directly using the nonlinear model. The purpose of this thesis is to derive the 6-DOF nonlinear model of the helicopter in an affine-in-control, non-iterative and square input-output formulation to enable many nonlinear control approaches, that require a control-affine and square model such as the sliding mode control (SMC), to be used for control design of small-scale helicopters. A combination of the first-principles approach and system identification is used to derive this model. To complete the nonlinear model of the helicopter required for the control design, the inverse kinematics of the actuating mechanisms of the main and tail rotors are also derived using an approach suitable for the real-time control applications. The parameters of the new control-oriented formulation are identified using a time-domain system identification strategy and the model is validated using flight test data. A robust sliding mode control (SMC) is then designed using the new formulation of the helicopter dynamics and its robustness to parameter uncertainties and wind disturbances is tested in simulations. Next, a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed is designed to allow for the control implementation and gain tuning as well as testing the robustness of the controller to external disturbances in a controlled environment on the ground. The controller is also tested in real flights.

Control Strategies and Stability Analysis of Small-scale Unmanned Helicopters

Control Strategies and Stability Analysis of Small-scale Unmanned Helicopters PDF Author: Lin Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Identification Modeling and Characteristics of Miniature Rotorcraft

Identification Modeling and Characteristics of Miniature Rotorcraft PDF Author: Bernard Mettler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475737858
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Identification Modeling and Characteristics of Miniature Rotorcraft introduces an approach to developing a simple and effective linear parameterized model of vehicle dynamics using the CIFERâ identification tool created by the Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division. It also presents the first application of the advanced control system optimization tool CONDUITâ to systematically and efficiently tune control laws for a model-scale UAV helicopter against multiple and competing dynamic response criteria. Identification Modeling and Characteristics of Miniature Rotorcraft presents the detailed account of how the theory was developed, the experimentation performed, and how the results were used. This book will serve as a basic and illustrative guide for all students that are interested in developing autonomous flying helicopters.

Experimental Nonlinear Control of a Helicopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Experimental Nonlinear Control of a Helicopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) PDF Author: Bryan M. Godbolt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automatic pilot (Helicopters)
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Helicopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) present a challenging control problem since their dynamics are nonlinear, underactuated and non-minimum phase. Although it is inherently an applied research field, due to the difficulty of building and maintaining an experimental platform relatively few experimental results exist in the literature. The approach followed in this thesis is to combine rigorous analysis with thorough experimental testing. This testing ensures validity of the designs. We present our experimental platform which is designed to be flexible so that it can accommodate nonlinear control research. Existing accounts of helicopter testbeds focus on hardware details. Since autopilot software design and development also requires a significant investment, we describe our implementation which has been released as open source for the benefit of the community. Due to the intractability of existing helicopter models, many control designs use non-physical inputs. We propose simple, invertible expressions relating the non-physical inputs to the physical inputs. In particular, modelling of the main rotor typically results in complicated expressions with extensive state dependence. While it is unlikely that angular velocity has a significant influence on the thrust, we show using experimental results that previous attempts to simplify this expression using a hover assumption are invalid during vertical flight. The platform is validated using a model-based PID control law. This control is derived using passivity to ignore nonlinear terms which do not affect stability. Among the class of vehicles with similar flight capabilities, helicopters possess a coupling between the rotational inputs and translational dynamics which is unique. This coupling is sometimes referred to as the Small Body Force (SBF) and is ignored in the literature for controller synthesis. We derive an experimentally-validated control design which accounts for the effect of the tail rotor in the SBF. In addition, we show why the contribution of the main rotor flapping in the SBF cannot be compensated using the same approach, and give a robustness analysis of their effect on the closed-loop. Finally, based on recent results we propose a control design which accounts for state constraints by enforcing bounds on translational velocity and roll-pitch travel.

SMALL-SIZE UNMANNED MODEL HELICOPTER GUIDANCE AND CONTROL.

SMALL-SIZE UNMANNED MODEL HELICOPTER GUIDANCE AND CONTROL. PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in military applications increased the research about them and the importance of them. The unmanned helicopters are the most agile and maneuverable vehicles among the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The ability of hovering and low speed cruise makes them even more attractive. Such abilities supply more areas to deploy the usage of the unmanned helicopters like search & rescue, mapping, surveillance. Autonomy is the key property for these vehicles. In order to provide autonomy to an unmanned vehicle, the guidance and the autopilot units are designed in the first step. Waypoints are used to track the desired trajectories. The line of sight guidance is used to reach an active waypoint. In order to realize the guidance commands controllers are designed by using LQR. In addition, position and heading controllers are designed by root-locus method. The trimming and linearization are implemented in order to extract linear models used for controller design. Keywords: Helicopter, control, guidance.

System Identification and Optimal Control of a Small-scale Unmanned Helicopter

System Identification and Optimal Control of a Small-scale Unmanned Helicopter PDF Author: Marthinus Christoffel Terblanche
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Helicopter -- Optimal linear control -- LQR -- Linear-quadratic control -- System identification -- Simulation.

An Embedded Nonlinear Control Implementation for a Hovering Small Unmanned Aerial System

An Embedded Nonlinear Control Implementation for a Hovering Small Unmanned Aerial System PDF Author: Joseph H. Althaus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drone aircraft
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description