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Article
Publication date: 4 January 2016

Dan Xu, James Ferris Whidborne and Alastair Cooke

The growing use of small unmanned rotorcraft in civilian applications means that safe operation is increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fault…

1606

Abstract

Purpose

The growing use of small unmanned rotorcraft in civilian applications means that safe operation is increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fault tolerant properties to faults in the actuators of an C 1 adaptive controller for a quadrotor vehicle.

Design/methodology/approach

C 1 adaptive control provides fast adaptation along with decoupling between adaptation and robustness. This makes the approach a suitable candidate for fault tolerant control of quadrotor and other multirotor vehicles. In the paper, the design of an C 1 adaptive controller is presented. The controller is compared to a fixed-gain LQR controller.

Findings

The C 1 adaptive controller is shown to have improved performance when subject to actuator faults, and a higher range of actuator fault tolerance.

Research limitations/implications

The control scheme is tested in simulation of a simple model that ignores aerodynamic and gyroscopic effects. Hence for further work, testing with a more complete model is recommended followed by implementation on an actual platform and flight test. The effect of sensor noise should also be considered along with investigation into the influence of wind disturbances and tolerance to sensor failures. Furthermore, quadrotors cannot tolerate total failure of a rotor without loss of control of one of the degrees of freedom, this aspect requires further investigation.

Practical implications

Applying the C 1 adaptive controller to a hexrotor or octorotor would increase the reliability of such vehicles without recourse to methods that require fault detection schemes and control reallocation as well as providing tolerance to a total loss of a rotor.

Social implications

In order for quadrotors and other similar unmanned air vehicles to undertake many proposed roles, a high level of safety is required. Hence the controllers should be fault tolerant.

Originality/value

Fault tolerance to partial actuator/effector faults is demonstrated using an C 1 adaptive controller.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 October 2023

Yerui Fan, Yaxiong Wu and Jianbo Yuan

This study aims to improve the muscle model control performance of a tendon-driven musculoskeletal system (TDMS) to overcome disadvantages such as multisegmentation and strong…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to improve the muscle model control performance of a tendon-driven musculoskeletal system (TDMS) to overcome disadvantages such as multisegmentation and strong coupling. An adaptive network controller (ANC) with a disturbance observer is established to reduce the modeling error of the musculoskeletal model and improve its antidisturbance ability.

Design/methodology/approach

In contrast to other control technologies adopted for musculoskeletal humanoids, which use geometric relationships and antagonist inhibition control, this study develops a method comprising of three parts. (1) First, a simplified musculoskeletal model is constructed based on the Taylor expansion, mean value theorem and Lagrange–d’Alembert principle to complete the decoupling of the muscle model. (2) Next, for this simplified musculoskeletal model, an adaptive neuromuscular controller is designed to acquire the muscle-activation signal and realize stable tracking of the endpoint of the muscle-driven robot relative to the desired trajectory in the TDMS. For the ANC, an adaptive neural network controller with a disturbance observer is used to approximate dynamical uncertainties. (3) Using the Lyapunov method, uniform boundedness of the signals in the closed-loop system is proved. In addition, a tracking experiment is performed to validate the effectiveness of the adaptive neuromuscular controller.

Findings

The experimental results reveal that compared with other control technologies, the proposed design techniques can effectively improve control accuracy. Moreover, the proposed controller does not require extensive considerations of the geometric and antagonistic inhibition relationships, and it demonstrates anti-interference ability.

Originality/value

Musculoskeletal robots with humanoid structures have attracted considerable attention from numerous researchers owing to their potential to avoid danger for humans and the environment. The controller based on bio-muscle models has shown great performance in coordinating the redundant internal forces of TDMS. Therefore, adaptive controllers with disturbance observers are designed to improve the immunity of the system and thus directly regulate the internal forces between the bio-muscle models.

Details

Robotic Intelligence and Automation, vol. 43 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2754-6969

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 September 2020

Madhusmita Panda, Bikramaditya Das, Bidyadhar Subudhi and Bibhuti Bhusan Pati

In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller (AFSMC) is developed for the formation control of a team of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) subjected to unknown…

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller (AFSMC) is developed for the formation control of a team of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) subjected to unknown payload mass variations during their mission.

Design/methodology/approach

A sliding mode controller (SMC) is designed to drive the state trajectories of the AUVs to a switching surface in the state space. The payload mass variation results in parameter variation in AUV dynamics leading to actuator failure. This further leads to loss of communication among the members of the team. Hence, an adaptive SMC based on fuzzy logic is developed to maintain the coordinated motion of AUVs with payload mass variation.

Findings

The results are obtained by employing adaptive SMC for AUVs with and without payload variations and are compared. It is observed that the proposed adaptive SMC exhibits improved performance and tracks the desired trajectory in less time even with variation in the payload. The adaptive fuzzy control algorithm is developed to handle variation in payload mass variation. Lyapunov theory is used to establish stability of AFSMC controller.

Research limitations/implications

Perfect alignment is assumed between centres of gravity (OG) and buoyancy (OB), thus AUVs maintaining horizontal stability during motion. The AUVs’ body centres are aligned with centres of gravity (OG), thus the distance vector being rg = [0,0,0]T. As it is a tracking problem, sway motion cannot be neglected as the AUVs are travelling in a curved locus, hence susceptible to Coriolis and centripetal forces. The AUV is underactuated as only two thrusters at the stern plate that are employed for the surge and yaw controls and error in Y- direction are controlled by adjusting control input in surge and heave direction. Control inputs to the thruster are constants, and depth control is achieved by adjusting the rudder angle.

Practical implications

AUVs are employed in military mission or surveys, and they carry heavy weapons or instrument to be deployed at or picked from specific locations. Such tasks lead to variation in payload, causing overall mass variation during an AUV’s motion. A sudden change in the mass after an AUV release or pick load results in variation in depth and average velocity.

Social implications

The proposed controller can be useful for military missions for carrying warfare and hydrographic surveys for deploying instruments.

Originality/value

A proposed non-linear SMC has been designed, and its performances have been verified in terms of tracking error in X, Y and Z directions. An adaptive fuzzy SMC has been modelled using quantized state information to compensate payload variation. The stability of AFSMC controller is established by using Lyapunov theorem, and reachability of the sliding surface is ensured.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 March 2021

Nigar Ahmed, Abid Raza and Rameez Khan

The aim of this paper is to design a nonlinear disturbance observer-based control (DOBC) method obtained by patching a control method developed using a robust adaptive technique…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to design a nonlinear disturbance observer-based control (DOBC) method obtained by patching a control method developed using a robust adaptive technique and a DO.

Design/methodology/approach

For designing a DOBC, initially a class of nonlinear system is considered with an external disturbance. First, a DO is designed to estimate the external disturbances. This estimate is combined with the controller to reject the disturbances and obtain the desired control objective. For designing a controller, the robust sliding mode control theory is used. Furthermore, instead of using a constant switching gain, an adaptive gain tuning criterion is designed using Lyapunov candidate function. To investigate the stability and effectiveness of the developed DOBC, stability analysis and simulation study are presented.

Findings

The major findings of this paper include the criteria of designing the robust adaptive control parameters and investigating the disturbance rejection when robust adaptive control based DOBC is developed.

Practical implications

In practice, the flight of quadrotor is affected by different kind of external disturbances, thus leading to the change in dynamics. Hence, it is necessary to design DOBCs based on robust adaptive controllers such that the quadrotor model adapts to the change in dynamics, as well as nullify the effect of disturbances.

Originality/value

Designing DOBCs based on robust control method is a common practice; however, the robust adaptive control method is rarely developed. This paper contributes in the domain of DOBC based on robust adaptive control methods such that the behavior of controller varies with the change in dynamics occurring due to external disturbances.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 93 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2021

Nigar Ahmed and Syed Awais Ali Shah

In this research paper, an adaptive output-feedback robust active disturbance rejection control (RADRC) is designed for the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) quadrotor…

Abstract

Purpose

In this research paper, an adaptive output-feedback robust active disturbance rejection control (RADRC) is designed for the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) quadrotor attitude model subject to unwanted uncertainties and disturbances (UUDs).

Design/methodology/approach

In order to achieve the desired control objectives in the presence of UUDs, the low pass filter (LPF) and extended high gain observer (EHGO) methods are used for the estimation of matched and mismatched UUDs, respectively. Furthermore, for solving the chattering incurred in the standard sliding mode control (SMC), a multilayer sliding mode surface is constructed. For formulating the adaptive output-feedback RADRC algorithm, the EHGO, LPF and SMC schemes are combined using the separation principle.

Findings

The findings of this research work include the design of an adaptive output-feedback RADRC with the ability to negate the UUDs as well as estimate the unknown states of the quadrotor attitude model. In addition, the chattering problem is addressed by designing a modified SMC scheme based on the multilayer sliding mode surface obtained by utilizing the estimated state variables. This sliding mode surface is also used to obtain the adaptive criteria for the switching design gain parameters involved in the SMC. Moreover, the requirement of high design gain parameters in the EHGO is solved by combining it with the LPF.

Originality/value

Designing the flight control techniques while assuming that the state variables are available is a common practice. In addition, to obtain robustness, the SMC technique is widely used. However, in practice, the state variables might not be available due to unknown parameters and uncertainties, as well as the chattering due to SMC reduces the performances of the actuators. Hence, in this paper, an adaptive output-feedback RADRC technique is designed to solve the problems of UUDs and chattering.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 39 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 November 2018

Hongshi Lu, Li Aijun, Wang Changqing and Zabolotnov Michaelovitch Yuriy

This paper aims to present the impact analysis of payload rendezvous with tethered satellite system and the design of an adaptive sliding mode controller which can deal with mass…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present the impact analysis of payload rendezvous with tethered satellite system and the design of an adaptive sliding mode controller which can deal with mass parameter uncertainty of targeted payload, so that the proposed cislunar transportation scheme with spinning tether system could be extended to a wider and more practical range.

Design/methodology/approach

In this work, dynamical model is first derived based on Langrangian equations to describe the motion of a spinning tether system in an arbitrary Keplerian orbit, which takes the mass of spacecraft, tether and payload into account. Orbital design and optimal open-loop control for the payload tossed by the spinning tether system are then presented. The real payload rendezvous impact around docking point is also analyzed. Based on reference acceleration trajectory given by optimal theories, a sliding mode controller with saturation functions is designed in the close-loop control of payload tossing stage under initial disturbance caused by actual rendezvous error. To alleviate the influence of inaccurate/unknown payload mass parameters, the adaptive law is designed and integrated into sliding mode controller. Finally, the performance of the proposed controller is evaluated using simulations. Simulation results validate that proposed controller is found effective in driving the spinning tether system to carry payload into desired cislunar transfer orbit and in dealing with payload mass parameter uncertainty in a relatively large range.

Findings

The results show that unideal rendezvous manoeuvres have significant impact on in-plane motion of spinning tether system, and the proposed adaptive sliding mode controller with saturation functions not only guarantees the stability but also provides good performance and robustness against the parameter and unstructured uncertainties.

Originality/value

This work addresses the analysis of actual impact on spinning tether system motion when payload is docking with system within tolerated docking window, rather than at the particular ideal docking point, and the robust tracking control of deep-space payload tossing missions with the spinning tether system using the adaptive sliding mode controller dealing with parameter uncertainties. This combination has not been proposed before for tracking control of multivariable spinning tether systems.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 90 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2022

Shrabani Sahu and Sasmita Behera

The wind turbine (WT) is a complex system subjected to wind disturbances. Because the aerodynamics is nonlinear, the control is thus challenging. For the variation of wind speed…

Abstract

Purpose

The wind turbine (WT) is a complex system subjected to wind disturbances. Because the aerodynamics is nonlinear, the control is thus challenging. For the variation of wind speed when rated power is delivered at rated wind speed, the power is limited to the rate by the pitching of the blades of the turbine. This paper aims to address pitch control with the WT benchmark model. The possible use of appropriate adaptive controller design that modifies the control action automatically identifying any change in system parameters is explored.

Design/methodology/approach

To deal with pitch control problem when wind speed exceeds the rated wind speed of the WT, six digital self-tuning controller (STC) with different structures such as proportional integral (PI), proportional derivative (PD), Dahlin’s, pole placement, deadbeat and Takahashi has been taken herein. The system model is identified as a second-order autoregressive exogenous (ARX) model by three techniques for comparison: recursive least square method (RLS), RLS with exponential forgetting and RLS with adaptive directional forgetting identification methods. A comparative study of three identification methods, six adaptive controllers with the conventional PI controller and sliding mode controller (SMC), are shown.

Findings

As per the results, the best improvement in control of the output power by pitching in full load region of benchmark model is achieved by self-tuning PD controller based on RLS with adaptive directional forgetting method. The adaptive control design has a future in WT control applications.

Originality/value

A comparative study of identification methods, six adaptive controllers with the conventional PI controller and SMC, are shown here. As per the results, the best improvement in control of the output power by pitching in the full load region of the benchmark model has been achieved by self-tuning PD controller. The best identification method or the system is RLS with an adaptive directional forgetting method. Instead of a step input response design for the controllers, the controller design has been carried out for the stochastic wind and the performance is adjudged by the normalized sum of square tracking error (NSSE) index. The validation of the proposed self-tuning PD controller has been shown in comparison to the conventional controller with Monte-Carlo analysis to handle model parameter alteration and erroneous measurement issues.

Details

World Journal of Engineering, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1708-5284

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 August 2023

Shuai Yue, Ben Niu, Huanqing Wang, Liang Zhang and Adil M. Ahmad

This paper aims to study the issues of adaptive fuzzy control for a category of switched under-actuated systems with input nonlinearities and external disturbances.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study the issues of adaptive fuzzy control for a category of switched under-actuated systems with input nonlinearities and external disturbances.

Design/methodology/approach

A control scheme based on sliding mode surface with a hierarchical structure is introduced to enhance the responsiveness and robustness of the studied systems. An equivalent control and switching control rules are co-designed in a hierarchical sliding mode control (HSMC) framework to ensure that the system state reaches a given sliding surface and remains sliding on the surface, finally stabilizing at the equilibrium point. Besides, the input nonlinearities consist of non-symmetric saturation and dead-zone, which are estimated by an unknown bounded function and a known affine function.

Findings

Based on fuzzy logic systems and the hierarchical sliding mode control method, an adaptive fuzzy control method for uncertain switched under-actuated systems is put forward.

Originality/value

The “cause and effect” problems often existing in conventional backstepping designs can be prevented. Furthermore, the presented adaptive laws can eliminate the influence of external disturbances and approximation errors. Besides, in contrast to arbitrary switching strategies, the authors consider a switching rule with average dwell time, which resolves control problems that cannot be resolved with arbitrary switching signals and reduces conservatism.

Details

Robotic Intelligence and Automation, vol. 43 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2754-6969

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 October 2021

Zhifang Wang, Jianguo Yu, Shangjing Lin, Junguo Dong and Zheng Yu

The paper takes the air-ground integrated wireless ad hoc network-integrated system as the research object, this paper aims to propose a distributed robust H adaptive

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper takes the air-ground integrated wireless ad hoc network-integrated system as the research object, this paper aims to propose a distributed robust H adaptive fault-tolerant control algorithm suitable for the system to distribute to solve the problem of control and communication failure at the same time.

Design/methodology/approach

In the paper, the authors propose a distributed robust H adaptive fault-tolerant control algorithm suitable for the air-ground integrated wireless ad hoc network-integrated system.

Findings

The results show that the integrated system has good robustness and fault tolerance performance indicators for flight control and wireless signal transmission when confronted with external disturbances, internal actuator failures and wireless network associated failures and the flight control curve of the quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is generally smooth and stable, even if it encounters external disturbances and actuator failures, its fault tolerance performance is very good. Then in the range of 400–800 m wireless communication distance, the success rate of wireless signal loop transmission is stable at 80%–100% and the performance is at least relatively improved by 158.823%.

Originality/value

This paper takes the air-ground integrated wireless ad hoc network-integrated system as the research object, based on the robust fault-tolerant control algorithm, the authors propose a distributed robust H adaptive fault-tolerant control algorithm suitable for the system and through the Riccati equation and linear matrix inequation method, the designed distributed robust H adaptive fault-tolerant controller further optimizes the fault suppression factor γ, so as to break through the limitation of only one Lyapunov matrix for different fault modes to distribute to solve the problem of control and communication failure at the same time.

Article
Publication date: 7 March 2022

Anukaran Khanna, Neelaksh Singh and Bijoy K. Mukherjee

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have wide applications in surveillance and reconnaissance without risking human life. Due to unbalanced payload distribution or in-flight…

Abstract

Purpose

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have wide applications in surveillance and reconnaissance without risking human life. Due to unbalanced payload distribution or in-flight deployment, UAVs may undergo lateral center of gravity (c.g.) variations resulting in an asymmetric dynamic having significant longitudinal and lateral/directional coupling and hence more pronounced nonlinearity. Therefore, automatic control of UAVs becomes extremely difficult when it is forced to perform maneuvers under such imbalance in lateral mass distribution. The purpose of this paper is to design adaptive nonlinear control so that the UAV can perform some useful lateral/directional maneuver under lateral c.g. uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

First the nominal lateral/directional dynamics of a fixed-wing UAV is framed into strict feedback form and then the block backstepping approach is used to design the controller to execute horizontal turn and aileron roll maneuvers under no lateral c.g. variation. Thereafter, an adaptive block backstepping controller is designed to adapt to uncertainty in lateral c.g. position considering an approximate model of the asymmetric dynamics. The proposed adaptive scheme is validated against the same two maneuvers as considered for the nominal case.

Findings

First it is shown that the lateral/directional dynamics of a UAV can be converted to a block strict feedback form for executing some lateral/directional maneuvers. However, it was observed that the maneuver performance suffers significant performance degradation under lateral c.g. variations. To mitigate this issue, a simple and computationally inexpensive adaptive block backstepping scheme is proposed and validated. The adaptation law is further proved to be able to asymptotically estimate the actual c.g. location of the UAV.

Practical implications

The proposed control scheme allows the UAV to automatically adapt to lateral c.g. variations so that the intended maneuvers are performed without any noticeable loss in maneuver performance.

Originality/value

There are very few works available in the literature that address nonlinear control designs for executing specific lateral/directional maneuvers and, moreover, they consider symmetric UAVs or aircraft only. This paper addresses the practical problem of autonomous maneuvering for UAVs with unbalanced lateral mass distribution leading to shift of c.g. out of its plane of symmetry.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 94 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

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