Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

A unified control strategy for autonomous aerial vehicles

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Autonomous Robots Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become popular in a wide range of applications, including many military and civilian uses. State-of-the-art control strategies for these vehicles are typically tailored to a specific platform and are often limited to a portion of the vehicle’s flight envelope. This article presents a single physics-based controller capable of aggressive maneuvering for the majority of UAVs. The controller is applicable to UAVs with the ability to apply a force along a body-fixed direction, and a moment about an arbitrary axis, which includes UAVs such as multi-copters, conventional fixed-wing, agile fixed-wing, most flying-wings, most tailsitters, some tilt-rotor/wing platforms, and some flapping-wing vehicles. We describe the implementation of this controller on numerous platforms, and demonstrate autonomous flight in outdoor flight tests for a quadrotor and an agile fixed-wing aircraft. To specifically demonstrate the extreme maneuvering capability of the control logic, we perform a rolling flip with the quadrotor and a rolling Harrier and an aggressive turnaround with the fixed-wing aircraft, all using a single controller.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

Abbreviations

\(\mathbf{A }\) :

Closed-loop position error state transition matrix

\({\mathbf {a}}^{des}\) :

Desired acceleration

\({\mathbf {C}}_{bi}\) :

Direction cosine matrix from \({\mathcal {F}}_i\) to \({\mathcal {F}}_b\)

\({\mathbf {C}}_{ri}\) :

Direction cosine matrix from \({\mathcal {F}}_i\) to \({\mathcal {F}}_r\)

\(c_j\) :

Control surface constant for the jth actuator

\({\hat{\mathbf{d }}}_j\) :

Direction of force for the jth actuator

\({\mathbf {e}}_b\) :

Angular error about the body frame axes

\({\mathbf {f}}^{aero}\) :

Aerodynamic force

\({\mathbf {f}}^{c}\) :

Control force

\(f^c\) :

Magnitude of control force (\(\left\Vert {\mathbf {f}}^{c}\right\Vert \))

\({\mathbf {f}}^{nc}\) :

Non-control force

\({\hat{\mathbf{f }}}\) :

Direction of control force (\(\frac{{\mathbf {f}}^{c}}{f^c}\))

\({\hat{\mathbf{f }}}^{ref}\) :

Direction of control force of the reference aircraft

\({\mathcal {F}}_b\) :

Body frame

\({\mathcal {F}}_i\) :

Inertial frame

\({\mathcal {F}}_r\) :

Reference body frame

\({\mathbf {g}}\) :

Acceleration due to gravity

\(g(u^s_j)\) :

Flapping thrust model

\(\varDelta {\mathbf {h}}\) :

Height error

\({\mathbf {I}}\) :

Moment of inertia with respect to center of mass

\(J_j\) :

Propeller advance ratio for the jth actuator

\(k_t\) :

Propeller thrust coefficient

\(k_q\) :

Propeller torque coefficient

\(\mathbf {K_{a_d}}\) :

Derivative attitude control gain

\(\mathbf {K_{a_p}}\) :

Proportional attitude control gain

\({K_{h_i}}\) :

Integral height control gain

\({K_{h_p}}\) :

Proportional height control gain

\({K_{p_d}}\) :

Derivative position control gain

\({K_{p_p}}\) :

Proportional position control gain

\({K_{v}}\) :

Proportional speed control gain

m :

Mass

\({\mathbf {m}}^{c}\) :

Control moment

\({\mathbf {m}}^{nc}\) :

Non-control moment

\({\mathbf {p}}\) :

Position

\(\mathbf {p}^{ref}\) :

Reference position

\(\varDelta \mathbf {p}\) :

Position error

\(\mathbf {q}\) :

Orientation quaternion

\(\mathbf {q}^{ref}\) :

Reference orientation quaternion

\(\bar{\mathbf {q}}^{ref}\) :

Augmented reference orientation quaternion

\(\mathbf {q}^{x}\) :

Quaternion rotation of \(\theta _x\)

\(\mathbf {q}^{y}\) :

Quaternion rotation of \(\theta _y\)

\(\mathbf {q}^{z}\) :

Quaternion rotation of \(\theta _z\)

\(\varDelta \mathbf {q}\) :

Error quaternion

UAV:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

\(\mathbf {r}_j\) :

Position vector from the center of mass to the jth actuator

R :

Propeller radius

t :

Time

\(\mathbf {u}^f_j\) :

Force generated by the jth actuator

\(\mathbf {u}^s\) :

Column matrix of actuator signals

\(u^s_j\) :

Actuator signal for the jth actuator

\(u_j\) :

Normalized actuator signal for the jth actuator

\(\mathbf {u}^\tau _j\) :

Torque generated by the jth actuator

V :

Lyapunov function

\(\mathbf {v}\) :

Velocity

\(\mathbf {v}^{ref}\) :

Reference velocity

\(\varDelta \mathbf {v}\) :

Velocity error

\(v_{s,j}\) :

Slipstream speed over the jth actuator

VTOL:

Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft

x :

x-position in \(\mathcal {F}_i\)

y :

y-position in \(\mathcal {F}_i\)

z :

z-position in \(\mathcal {F}_i\)

\(\mu \) :

Torque cancellation constant

\(\varvec{\omega }\) :

Angular velocity

\(\varvec{\omega }^{ref}\) :

Reference angular velocity

\(\varvec{\theta }\) :

Triad of rotations for position control (\([\theta _x~\theta _y~\theta _z]\))

\(\rho \) :

Air density

\(\phi \) :

Roll

\(\theta \) :

Pitch

\(\psi \) :

Yaw

\(\gamma \) :

Wing tilt angle

\(\Box _b\) :

Resolved in the body frame

\(\Box _i\) :

Resolved in the inertial frame

\(\Box _r\) :

Resolved in the reference body frame

\(\Box _x\) :

The x component of a vector

\(\Box _y\) :

The y component of a vector

\(\Box _z\) :

The z component of a vector

\(\Box _{prev}\) :

Value at the previous time step

\(\Box _0\) :

Scalar part of quaternion

\(\Box _{1:3}\) :

Vector part of quaternion

\(\odot \) :

Hamilton quaternion product

\(\Box ^T\) :

Transpose

\(\Box ^*\) :

Conjugate

\(\dot{\Box }\) :

Time derivative

References

  1. Airbus: Vahana. (2017). Retrieved October 16, 2018, from https://vahana.aero.

  2. Bulka, E., & Nahon, M. (2018). Automatic control for aerobatic maneuvering of agile fixed-wing UAVs. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-018-0790-z

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Bulka, E., & Nahon, M. (2018). Autonomous fixed-wing aerobatics: From theory to flight. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) (pp. 6573–6580). IEEE.

  4. Bulka, E., & Nahon, M. (2018). A universal controller for unmanned aerial vehicles. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS) (pp. 4171–4176). IEEE.

  5. Dicker, G., Chui, F., & Sharf, I. (2017). Quadrotor collision characterization and recovery control. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) (pp. 5830–5836). IEEE.

  6. Environment and Climate Change Canada: Hourly data report. (2017). http://climate.weather.gc.ca.

  7. Etkin, B. (1982). Dynamics of flight: Stability and control. Brisbane: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Furrer, F., Burri, M., Achtelik, M., & Siegwart, R. (2016). Robot operating system (ROS): The complete reference (Vol. 1), Chap. RotorS—A modular gazebo mav simulator framework (pp. 595–625). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26054-9_23.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  9. Green, W. E., & Oh, P. Y. (2009). A hybrid MAV for ingress and egress of urban environments. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 25(2), 253–263. https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2009.2014501.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hua, M. D., Hamel, T., Morin, P., & Samson, C. (2009). Control of a class of thrust-propelled underactuated vehicles and application to a VTOL drone. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) (pp. 972–978). IEEE.

  11. Hua, M. D., Pucci, D., Hamel, T., Morin, P., & Samson, C. (2014). A novel approach to the automatic control of scale model airplanes. In 53rd Annual conference on decision and control (CDC) (pp. 805–812). IEEE.

  12. Khan, W. (2016). Dynamics modeling of agile fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles. Ph.D. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

  13. Khan, W., & Nahon, M. (2015). A propeller model for general forward flight conditions. International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, 3(2/3), 72–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lee, T., Leok, M., & McClamroch, N. H. (2013). Nonlinear robust tracking control of a quadrotor UAV on SE (3). Asian Journal of Control, 15(2), 391–408.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Mahony, R., Kumar, V., & Corke, P. (2012). Multirotor aerial vehicles. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 19, 20–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. McCormick, B. (1995). Aerodynamics, aeronautics, and flight mechanics (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Mellinger, D., Michael, N., & Kumar, V. (2012). Trajectory generation and control for precise aggressive maneuvers with quadrotors. International Journal of Robotics Research, 31(5), 664–674. https://doi.org/10.1177/0278364911434236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Moore, J., Cory, R., & Tedrake, R. (2014). Robust post-stall perching with a simple fixed-wing glider using LQR-Trees. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 9(2), 025013. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3182/9/2/025013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Park, S. (2012). Autonomous aerobatics on commanded path. Aerospace Science and Technology, 22(1), 64–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2011.06.007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Pucci, D., Hamel, T., Morin, P., & Samson, C. (2015). Nonlinear feedback control of axisymmetric aerial vehicles. Automatica, 53, 72–78.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  21. Ritz, R., & D’Andrea, R. (2017). A global controller for flying wing tailsitter vehicles. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) (pp. 2731–2738). IEEE.

  22. Snell, S. A., Enns, D. F., & Garrard, W. L., Jr. (1992). Nonlinear inversion flight control for a supermaneuverable aircraft. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 15(4), 976–984.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Sobolic, F. M. (2009). Agile flight control techniques for a fixed-wing aircraft. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  24. Verboom, J., Tijmons, S., De Wagter, C., Remes, B., Babuska, R., & de Croon, G. C. (2015). Attitude and altitude estimation and control on board a flapping wing micro air vehicle. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) (pp. 5846–5851). IEEE.

  25. Wie, B., Weiss, H., & Arapostathis, A. (1989). Quaternion feedback regulator for spacecraft eigenaxis rotations. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 12(3), 375–380.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Corey Miles and Walter Jothiraj for assistance during flight testing, and Professor Inna Sharf for the valuable comments and conversations. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) [NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2018-04547], the Fonds de Recherche du Quebec—Nature et technologies (FRQNT) and by a McGill Engineering Doctoral Award (MEDA).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Eitan Bulka & Meyer Nahon

Authors
  1. Eitan Bulka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Meyer Nahon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eitan Bulka.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (mp4 108277 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bulka, E., Nahon, M. A unified control strategy for autonomous aerial vehicles. Auton Robot 45, 859–883 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-021-10015-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-021-10015-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation