Optimal Path Following for Small Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Wind Disturbances

This article presents a novel path-following algorithm for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles by virtue of a nonlinear optimal control approach and wind disturbance observers. Different from some exiting algorithms, the proposed algorithm formulates the path-following problem into a control problem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on control systems technology 2021-05, Vol.29 (3), p.996-1008
Main Authors: Yang, Jun, Liu, Cunjia, Coombes, Matthew, Yan, Yunda, Chen, Wen-Hua
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Algorithms
Control systems design
Coordinate transformations
Cost function
Disturbance observer
Disturbance observers
Dynamic stability
Fixed wings
Flight tests
Heuristic algorithms
Kinematics
Nonlinear control
Optimal control
Parameter estimation
path following
Task analysis
Trajectory planning
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Vehicle dynamics
Wind
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Summary:This article presents a novel path-following algorithm for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles by virtue of a nonlinear optimal control approach and wind disturbance observers. Different from some exiting algorithms, the proposed algorithm formulates the path-following problem into a control problem by introducing auxiliary dynamics for the path parameter. The proposed controller is designed in an optimal and systematic manner where the control action is generated according to a well-defined cost function. This framework does not require any complex geometric coordinate transformation and can be easily tuned to accommodate curved reference paths, making it straightforward to deploy in different flight missions. Moreover, the wind influences on the path-following performance is explicitly compensated by the proposed algorithm based on the wind estimates provided by nonlinear disturbance observers. The closed-loop stability, including the auxiliary dynamics for path parameter and observer dynamics for wind estimation, is also analyzed. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm have been thoroughly validated in simulation studies and realistic flight tests.
ISSN:1063-6536
1558-0865
DOI:10.1109/TCST.2020.2980727