Time delay resistant adaptive control of mini-UAVs

Abstract

Many potential applications of adaptive control, such as adaptive flight control systems, require that the controller have high performance, stability guarantees, and robustness to time delays. These requirements typically lead to engineering trade-offs, such as a tradeoff between performance and robustness. In this paper, a new Time Delay Resistant (TDR) adaptive control framework is proposed using a combination of several modifications to the typical direct model reference adaptive control (MRAC) approach. The benefits of the TDR approach are explored with a simulation of the longitudinal dynamics of a fixed-wing aircraft. Flight tests of a 4 rotor mini-UAV were also performed using a subset of the TDR adaptive control features.