A Data-Driven Adaptive Method for Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Meili Chen,Yuan Wang

doi:10.4236/aast.2019.41001

Abstract

In this paper, a real-time online data-driven adaptive method is developed to deal with uncertainties such as high nonlinearity, strong coupling, parameter perturbation and external disturbances in attitude control of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Firstly, a model-free adaptive control (MFAC) method requiring only input/output (I/O) data and no model information is adopted for control scheme design of angular velocity subsystem which contains all model information and up-mentioned uncertainties. Secondly, the internal model control (IMC) method featured with less tuning parameters and convenient tuning process is adopted for control scheme design of the certain Euler angle subsystem. Simulation results show that, the method developed is obviously superior to the cascade PID (CPID) method and the nonlinear dynamic inversion (NDI) method.

Highlights

The performance of the attitude controller of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) determines the quality of its autonomous flight
A real-time online data-driven adaptive method is developed to deal with uncertainties such as high nonlinearity, strong coupling, parameter perturbation and external disturbances in attitude control of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
Simulation results show that, the method developed is obviously superior to the cascade PID (CPID) method and the nonlinear dynamic inversion (NDI) method

Summary

Introduction

The performance of the attitude controller of a fixed-wing UAV determines the quality of its autonomous flight. A data-driven control method for designing attitude control law of fixed-wing UAV is developed. As the angular velocity control system contains all model information (certainties and uncertainties), a novel data-driven MFAC [13] [14] method is adopted for the inner loop angular velocity control law design. The method developed in our paper uses no model information, but only I/O data of UAV to obtain control law by optimizing the deflection angles of control surfaces in real-time. The IMC method, which was hardly used in fixed-wing UAV application but widely in other fields [18] [19] [20], is used to design outer loop Euler angle control law.

Control Law Design

Model for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Brief Introduction of Internal Model Control

Control Scheme

Numerical Validation

Conclusion