A Comprehensive Analytical Tool for Control Validation of Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aircraft

This paper improves and implements a framework based on robustness analysis to aid in the certification of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) flight controllers. The approach first models the UAS using a linear fractional transformation on uncertainties and then conducts robustness analysis on the uncer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on control systems technology 2020-09, Vol.28 (5), p.1785-1801
Main Authors: Fry, J. Micah, Farhood, Mazen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Aerodynamics
Aerospace control
Aircraft
Aircraft control
Analytical models
Computer simulation
Controllers
Flight control systems
Flight tests
integral quadratic constraints (IQCs)
Mathematical model
path following
PID
Proportional integral derivative
Radius of curvature
Robust control
Robustness
Tracking control
Trajectory analysis
Trajectory control
trajectory tracking
Uncertainty
Uncertainty analysis
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Unmanned aircraft
unmanned aircraft system (UAS)
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Summary:This paper improves and implements a framework based on robustness analysis to aid in the certification of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) flight controllers. The approach first models the UAS using a linear fractional transformation on uncertainties and then conducts robustness analysis on the uncertain system via integral quadratic constraint (IQC) theory. By expressing the set of desired UAS flight paths with an uncertainty, the framework considers the analysis of the uncertain UAS flying about any level path whose radius of curvature is bounded. The approach is capable of analyzing trajectory-tracking and path-following controllers, and an accurate expression of UAS path-following dynamics in the presence of nonzero wind is derived. To demonstrate the versatility of this technique, we use IQC analysis to tune trajectory-tracking and path-following controllers that are designed via \mathcal {H}_{2} or \mathcal {H}_\infty synthesis methods. IQC analysis is also used to tune path-following PID controllers. By employing a nondeterministic simulation environment and conducting numerous flight tests, we see that the uncertain UAS framework reliably predicts loss of control, compares the robustness of different controllers, and provides tuned controllers that are sufficiently robust. Finally, this work demonstrates that signal IQCs have an important role in obtaining IQC analysis results that are less conservative and more consistent with observations from flight test data.
ISSN:1063-6536
1558-0865
DOI:10.1109/TCST.2019.2923649