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Article
Publication date: 3 September 2021

Yanjie Chen, Weiwei Zhan, Yibin Huang, Zhiqiang Miao and Yaonan Wang

This paper aims to investigate the distributed formation control problem for a multi-quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle system without linear velocity feedbacks.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the distributed formation control problem for a multi-quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle system without linear velocity feedbacks.

Design/methodology/approach

A nonlinear controller is proposed based on the orthogonal group SE(3) to obviate singularities and ambiguities of the traditional parameterized attitude representations. A cascade structure is applied in the distributed controller design. The inner loop is responsible for attitude control, and the outer loop is responsible for translational dynamics. To ensure a linear-velocity-free characteristic, some auxiliary variables are introduced to construct virtual signals in distributed controller design. The stability analysis of the proposed distributed control method by the Lyapunov function is provided as well.

Findings

A group of four quadrotors with constant reference linear velocity and a group of six quadrotors with varying reference linear velocity are adopted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Originality/value

This is a new innovation for multi-robot formation control method to improve assembly automation.

Details

Assembly Automation, vol. 41 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-5154

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 April 2016

Deepak B B V L and Pritpal Singh

In the previous decade, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have turned into a subject of enthusiasm for some exploration associations. UAVs are discovering applications in different…

1885

Abstract

Purpose

In the previous decade, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have turned into a subject of enthusiasm for some exploration associations. UAVs are discovering applications in different regions going from military applications to activity reconnaissance. The purpose of this paper is to overview a particular sort of UAV called quadrotor or quadcopter.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper includes the dynamic models of a quadrotor and the distinctive model-reliant and model-autonomous control systems and their correlation.

Findings

In the present time, focus has moved to outlining autonomous quadrotors. Ultimately, the paper examines the potential applications of quadrotors and their part in multi-operators frameworks.

Originality/value

This investigation deals with the review on various quadrotors, their applications and motion control strategies.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 September 2015

Mohd Ariffanan Mohd Basri, Abdul Rashid Husain and Kumeresan A. Danapalasingam

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach for robust control of an autonomous quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in automatic take-off, hovering and landing…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach for robust control of an autonomous quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in automatic take-off, hovering and landing mission and also to improve the stabilizing performance of the quadrotor with inherent time-varying disturbance.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the dynamic model of the aerial vehicle is mathematically formulated. Then, a combination of a nonlinear backstepping scheme with the intelligent fuzzy system as a new key idea to generate a robust controller is designed for the stabilization and altitude tracking of the vehicle. For the problem of determining the backstepping control parameters, a new heuristic algorithm, namely, Gravitational Search Algorithm has been used.

Findings

The control law design utilizes the backstepping control methodology that uses Lyapunov function which can guarantee the stability of the nominal model system, whereas the intelligent system is used as a compensator to attenuate the effects caused by external disturbances. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control scheme can achieve favorable control performances for automatic take-off, hovering and landing mission of quadrotor UAV even in the presence of unknown perturbations.

Originality/value

This paper propose a new robust control design approach which incorporates the backstepping control with fuzzy system for quadrotor UAV with inherent time-varying disturbance. The originality of this work relies on the technique to compensate the disturbances acting on the quadrotor UAV. In this new approach, the fuzzy system is introduced as an auxiliary control effort to compensate the effect of disturbances. Because the proposed control technique has the capability of robustness against disturbance, thus, it is also suitable to be applied for a broad class of uncertain nonlinear systems.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology: An International Journal, vol. 87 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0002-2667

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 October 2019

Kheireddine Choutri, Mohand Lagha and Laurent Dala

This paper aims to propose a new multi-layered optimal navigation system that jointly optimizes the energy consumption, improves the robustness and raises the performance of a…

169

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose a new multi-layered optimal navigation system that jointly optimizes the energy consumption, improves the robustness and raises the performance of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed system is designed as a multi-layered system. First, the control architecture layer links the input and the output spaces via quaternion-based differential flatness equations. Then, the trajectory generation layer determines the optimal reference path and avoids obstacles to secure the UAV from collisions. Finally, the control layer allows the quadrotor to track the generated path and guarantees the stability using a double loop non-linear optimal backstepping controller (OBS).

Findings

All the obtained results are confirmed using several scenarios in different situations to prove the accuracy, energy optimization and the robustness of the designed system.

Practical implications

The proposed controllers are easily implementable on-board and are computationally efficient.

Originality/value

The originality of this research is the design of a multi-layered optimal navigation system for quadrotor UAV. The proposed control architecture presents a direct relation between the states and their derivatives, which then simplifies the trajectory generation problem. Furthermore, the derived differentially flat equations allow optimization to occur within the output space as opposed to the control space. This is beneficial because constraints such as obstacle avoidance occur in the output space; hence, the computation time for constraint handling is reduced. For the OBS, the novelty is that all controller parameters are derived using the multi-objective genetic algorithm (MO-GA) that optimizes all the quadrotor state’s cost functions jointly.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 92 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 July 2018

Shuai An, Suozhong Yuan and Huadong Li

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the quadrotor’s capability of short-distance delivery to satisfy the large demand for quadrotor, which is used for goods distribution in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the quadrotor’s capability of short-distance delivery to satisfy the large demand for quadrotor, which is used for goods distribution in huge warehouses, under time-varying payload and external wind disturbance.

Design/methodology/approach

A trajectory tracking controller design based on the combination of an adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) method and the active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) technique is proposed. Besides, an inner–outer loop control system structure is adopted.

Findings

Simulation results of different trajectory tracking verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed tracking control method under various conditions, including parameter uncertainty and external wind disturbance. The proposed control strategy ensures that quadrotor UAV is capable of tracking linear and spiral trajectory well whether it loads or unloads goods in the presence of the external wind disturbance.

Originality/value

The proposed method of designing a trajectory tracking controller is based on an integral ADRC and ASMC scheme so as to deal with the trajectory tracking problem for a quadrotor with payload variation.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 September 2021

Xu Zou, Zhenbao Liu, HongGang Gao and Wen Zhao

This study aims to deal with the problem of trajectory tracking control for the quadrotor under external environmental disturbance and variable payloads.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to deal with the problem of trajectory tracking control for the quadrotor under external environmental disturbance and variable payloads.

Design/methodology/approach

In the field of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control, external environmental disturbance and internal variable payloads as two major interference factors lead to control performance degradation or even instability, thus a trajectory tracking controller which innovatively combines sliding mode control technology and model-free control technique is proposed. The proposed controller is constructed with a learning rate-based sliding mode controller and an ultra-local model. Based on the proposed controller, the nonlinear system model of variable load quadrotor is locally estimated and the system’s uncertainties and disturbances can be compensated.

Findings

The simulation and actual test results demonstrate the satisfactory control performance and the robustness of the proposed controller compared with the PID and Backstepping controller under external environmental disturbance and variable payloads. Moreover, the proposed controller solves the trajectory tracking control problem not only when payloads change at the center of gravity but also when the position of load variation deviates from the center of gravity.

Practical implications

In both military and civilian domains, the quadrotor may encounter such situations that the payloads change, such as transporting goods, aerial refueling and so on. As a large internal interference factor, variable load tends to lead to unstable control. The research results provide theoretical guidance and technical support for trajectory tracking control of quadrotor under variable payloads.

Originality/value

The proposed controller combines learning rate-based sliding mode controller and model-free control technique to achieve a more efficient and accurate trajectory control of the quadrotor when considering system uncertainties and the load variation that happens in the unknown location.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 93 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 November 2020

Taki Eddine Lechekhab, Stojadin Manojlovic, Momir Stankovic, Rafal Madonski and Slobodan Simic

The control of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a challenging problem because of its highly nonlinear dynamics, under-actuated nature and strong cross-couplings. To…

Abstract

Purpose

The control of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a challenging problem because of its highly nonlinear dynamics, under-actuated nature and strong cross-couplings. To solve this problem, this paper aims to propose a robust control strategy, based on a concept of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC).

Design/methodology/approach

The altitude/attitude dynamics of a quadrotor is reformulated into the ADRC framework. Three distinct variations of the error-based ADRC algorithms, with different structures of generalized extended state observers (GESO), are derived for the altitude/attitude trajectory-following task. The convergence of the observation part is proved based on the singular perturbation theory. Through a frequency analysis and a quantitative comparison in a simulated environment, each design is shown to have certain advantages and disadvantages in terms of tracking accuracy and robustness. The digital prototypes of the proposed controllers for quadrotor altitude and attitude control channels are designed and validated through real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) co-simulation, with field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware.

Findings

The effects of unavailable reference time-derivatives can be estimated by the ESO and rejected through the outer control loop. The higher order ESOs demonstrate better performances, but with reductions of stability margins. Time-domain simulation analysis reveals the benefits of the proposed control structure related to classical control approach. Real-time FPGA-based HIL co-simulations validated the performances of the considered digital controllers in typical quadrotor flight scenarios.

Practical implications

The conducted study forms a set of practical guidelines for end-users for selecting specific ADRC design for quadrotor control depending on the given control objective and work conditions. Furthermore, the paper presents detailed procedure for the design, simulation and validation of the embedded FPGA-based quadrotor control unit.

Originality/value

In light of the currently available literature on error-based ADRC, a comprehensive approach is applied here, which includes the design of error-based ADRC with different GESOs, its frequency-domain and time-domain analyses using different simulation of UAV flight scenarios, as well as its FPGA-based implementation and testing on the real hardware.

Article
Publication date: 16 March 2021

Aws Abdulsalam Najm, Ibraheem Kasim Ibraheem, Amjad J. Humaidi and Ahmad Taher Azar

The hybrid control system of the nonlinear PID (NLPID) controller and improved active disturbance rejection control (IADRC) are proposed for stabilization purposes for a 6-degree…

Abstract

Purpose

The hybrid control system of the nonlinear PID (NLPID) controller and improved active disturbance rejection control (IADRC) are proposed for stabilization purposes for a 6-degree freedom (DoF) quadrotor system with the existence of exogenous disturbances and system uncertainties.

Design/methodology/approach

IADRC units are designed for the altitude and attitude systems, while NLPID controllers are designed for the xy position system on the quadrotor nonlinear model. The proposed controlling scheme is implemented using MATLAB/Simulink environment and is compared with the traditional PID controller and NLPID controller.

Findings

Different tests have been done, such as step reference tracking, hovering mode, trajectory tracking, exogenous disturbances and system uncertainties. The simulation results showed the demonstrated performance and stability gained by using the proposed scheme as compared with the other two controllers, even when the system was exposed to different disturbances and uncertainties.

Originality/value

The study proposes an NLPID-IADRC scheme to stabilize the motion of the quadrotor system while tracking a specified trajectory in the presence of exogenous disturbances and parameter uncertainties. The proposed multi-objective Output Performance Index (OPI) was used to obtain the optimum integrated time of the absolute error for each subsystem, UAV quadrotor system energy consumption and for minimizing the chattering phenomenon by adding the integrated time absolute of the control signals.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 March 2022

Aziz Kaba and Ahmet Ermeydan

The purpose of this paper is to present an improved particle filter-based attitude estimator for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that addresses the degeneracy issues.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an improved particle filter-based attitude estimator for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that addresses the degeneracy issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Control of a quadrotor is not sufficient enough without an estimator to eliminate the noise from low-cost sensors. In this work, particle filter-based attitude estimator is proposed and used for nonlinear quadrotor dynamics. But, since recursive Bayesian estimation steps may rise degeneracy issues, the proposed scheme is improved with four different and widely used resampling algorithms.

Findings

Robustness of the proposed schemes is tested under various scenarios that include different levels of uncertainty and different particle sizes. Statistical analyses are conducted to assess the error performance of the schemes. According to the statistical analysis, the proposed estimators are capable of reducing sensor noise up to 5x, increasing signal to noise ratio up to 2.5x and reducing the uncertainty bounds up to 36x with root mean square value of as low as 0.0024, mean absolute error value of 0.036, respectively.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this paper is to propose a robust particle filter-based attitude estimator to eliminate the low-cost sensor errors of quadrotor UAVs.

Details

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

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 February 2014

Angel Flores-Abad, Pu Xie, Gabriela Martinez-Arredondo and Ou Ma

– Calibration and 6-DOF test of a unique inertial measurement unit (IMU) using a Quadrotor aircraft. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issue.

Abstract

Purpose

Calibration and 6-DOF test of a unique inertial measurement unit (IMU) using a Quadrotor aircraft. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issue.

Design/methodology/approach

An IMU with the special capability of measuring the angular acceleration was developed and tested. A Quadrotor aircraft is used as 6-DOF test platform. Kinematics modeling of the Quadrotor was used in the determination of the Euler angles, while Dynamics modeling aided in the design the closed loop controller. For safety, the flight test was performed on a 6-DOF constrained reduced-gravity test stand.

Findings

The developed IMU is suitable for measuring states and its time derivatives of mini UAVs. Not only that but also a simple control algorithm can be integrated in the same processing unit (a 32 microcontroller in this case).

Originality/value

The tested IMU as well as the safety constrained test techniques are unique.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems, vol. 2 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-6427

Keywords

1 – 10 of 181