Planar Vertical Take-off And Landing Aircraft Research Articles

Robust constrained trajectory tracking control for a PVTOL aircraft subject to external disturbances

This paper addresses the trajectory tracking control problem of a planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft in the presence of position constraints and external disturbances. A novel robust constrained control approach is proposed by incorporating the barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) and nonlinear damping items within the framework of dynamic surface control design. The dynamic surface control is used to avoid the ‘explosion of terms’ problem of the traditional backstepping control. The tan-type BLF is utilised to preserve the position tracking errors always within the predefined position constraints. The nonlinear damping items are applied to handle the effect of external disturbances. The uniform ultimate boundedness of the resulting closed-loop system is rigorously proved through the Lyapunov’s direct method. A distinct feature of the proposed control approach is that it is a general methodology for the trajectory tracking control of PVTOL aircraft with or without position constraints. Both theoretical analysis and numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness and benefits of the proposed control approach.

A Simple Approach to Regulate a PVTOL System Using Matching Conditions

In this work, based on shaping an energy function, it is introduced an output-feedback regulation control law for a Planar Vertical Takeoff and Landing (PVTOL) aircraft. To this end, a version of the matching control energy method is used to construct the Lyapunov candidate function and the stabilizer controller to regulate the PVTOL aircraft. The non-measurable system velocities are recovered using a suitable exact differentiator observer, achieved through super-twisting based observer. The theorem of LaSalle, together with some tools from the cascade system theory, was used to carry out the closed-loop stability analysis. Using a suitable finite time-varying identificator, the obtained controllers were improved to compensate bounded, smooth, and matching perturbations. Numerical simulations were included to test the effectiveness of the obtained controller.

Research on reconfigurable control for a hovering PVTOL aircraft

This paper presents a novel reconfigurable control method for the planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft when actuator faults occur. According to the position subsystem within the multivariable coupling, and the series between subsystems of position and attitude, an active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) is used to counteract the adverse effects when actuator faults occur. The controller is cascade and ensures the input value of the controlled system can be tracked accurately. The coordinate transformation method is used for model decoupling due to the severe coupling. In addition, the Taylor differentiator is designed to improve the control precision based on the detailed research for tracking differentiator. The stability and safety of the aircraft is much improved in the event of actuator faults. Finally, the simulation results are given to show the effectiveness and performance of the developed method.

Research on reconfigurable control for a hovering PVTOL aircraft

This paper presents a novel reconfigurable control method for the planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft when actuator faults occur. According to the position subsystem within the multivariable coupling, and the series between subsystems of position and attitude, an active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) is used to counteract the adverse effects when actuator faults occur. The controller is cascade and ensures the input value of the controlled system can be tracked accurately. The coordinate transformation method is used for model decoupling due to the severe coupling. In addition, the Taylor differentiator is designed to improve the control precision based on the detailed research for tracking differentiator. The stability and safety of the aircraft is much improved in the event of actuator faults. Finally, the simulation results are given to show the effectiveness and performance of the developed method.

Priority altitude PVTOL aircraft control via immersion and invariance

ABSTRACT In this work, the immersion and invariance (I&I) control technique is used in order to design a new controller that stabilises the PVTOL (planar vertical take-off and landing) aircraft system. The controller gives priority to the control of the aircraft's altitude before controlling the lateral displacement, fact from which interesting features as less thrust effort and less aggressive manoeuvres for roll moment are gained. The fundamental idea for the development of the proposed controller is based on the selection of the target dynamic system in accordance with the nature of the translational motion system to then stabilise the off-manifold dynamics by using the rotational motion system. It is proved that the proposed control scheme is globally asymptotically stable. Simulation results validate our proposal.

Cascade ADRC-based fault-tolerant control for a PVTOL aircraft with potential actuator failures

This paper presents a novel reconfigurable control method for the planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft with potential actuator failures. A cascade active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) is used to counteract the adverse effects when the actuator failure occurs. The coordinate transformation is used for model decoupling due to the severe coupling between some variables. This approach does not require the accurate mathematical model of the controlled system and ensures that the reference input value can be tracked rapidly and accurately. The stability and safety of the aircraft is much improved in the event of actuator failures. Finally, the simulation results are given to show the effectiveness and performance of the developed method.

Robust Stabilization of Nonlinear PVTOL Aircraft with Parameter Uncertainties

AbstractIn this work, the stabilization control problem is investigated for the planar vertical take‐off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft with unknown model parameters. To cope with the challenges caused by non‐minimum phase and parametric uncertainties, a new appropriate output, different from the general centroid position output, is carefully constructed to ensure the zero dynamics asymptotically stable, then the sliding‐mode technique is applied to design a state feedback control law. The proposed robust control law is proved able to asymptotically stabilize the PVTOL aircraft to the desired fixed position with null velocities and roll angle despite the unknown model parameters. Simulation examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.

Robust Model Predictive Control of PVTOL Aircraft∗∗This work was supported by Center of Excellence in Complex and Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (CoE-CNDS), established under TEQIP-II, Subcomponent 1.2.1.

Abstract The paper presents a Tube Based Model Predictive Control (TB-MPC) strategy for robust stabilization of Planar Vertical Take-off and Landing (PVTOL) aircraft. PVTOL system is considered as a benchmark for investigating dynamics and control related issues for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Control problem of such a system is challenging due to its nonlinear dynamics and under actuated nature. Moreover, a major problem with these systems is the loss of controllability at certain points in the state space. To overcome these issues a unique approach has been used to approximate the nonlinear dynamics of the PVTOL system under additive disturbance with a set of linear systems to form polytopic linear differential inclusion (PLDI). Obtained approximation always satisfies the controllability condition. The proof of stability and feasibility for MPC has been derived. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is shown via simulations by stabilizing the aircraft, while rejecting the effects of disturbances.

Research on One Type of Saturated Nonlinear Stabilization Control Method of X-Z Inverted Pendulum

摘要: X-Z倒立摆不仅具有普通倒立摆的最小相位和欠驱动特性, 同时具有更多的控制自由度.通过一定的状态变换, 发现了X-Z倒立摆与平面垂直起降飞行器模型之间的等价关系. 基于该等价关系,借鉴平面垂直起降飞行器的控制方法, 把饱和非线性控制方法应用于X-Z倒立摆的稳定控制. 通过与PID (Proportion integration differentiation)控制方法的仿真对比,证明了该稳定控制方法的有效性. 关键词: X-Z倒立摆 / 平面垂直起降飞行器 / 稳定 / 非最小相位 / 欠驱动

Trajectory Tracking Control of a PVTOL Aircraft Based on Linear Algebra Theory

AbstractIn this work, a trajectory tracking control design is proposed for the planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft using linear algebra theory. The resulting control law is implemented easily since the equation to be solved is not complex. The tracking is achieved providing convergence of the tracking errors to zero, and simulation results show the good performance of the proposed controller.

Research on One Type of Saturated Nonlinear Stabilization Control Method of X-Z Inverted Pendulum

X-Z inverted pendulum not only has nonminimum phase and underactuated performance that normal inverted pendulum has, but also has more control freedoms. The equivalence relationship between X-Z inverted pendulum and planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft is found through definite states transformation. The saturated nonlinear control method original from the control method of PVTOL aircraft is used to the stabilization control of the X-Z inverted pendulum based on the equivalence relationship between them. The stabilization method is compared with the PID (Proportion integration differentiation) control through simulation. And this proofs the effectiveness of the stabilization method.

Stabilization of uncoupled PVTOL aircraft based on a Lyapunov function

In this paper we present a stabilization procedure for PVTOL (planar vertical take off and landing) aircraft with zero coupling coefficient that is defined as the effect of rolling moment on lateral acceleration. A stabilizing control structure has been designed via Lyapunov’s direct method including almost the whole state space and its asymptotic convergence has been proven using La Salle’s invariance principle. Simulation results have illustrated the effectiveness of proposed control algorithm.

Approximate trajectory tracking of input‐disturbed PVTOL aircraft with delayed attitude measurements

AbstractIn this paper, we address the flight‐trajectory tracking problem of an input‐disturbed planar vertical take‐off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft with delayed attitude measurements. By applying the first‐order Padé approximation to deal with the time delay functions, the problem is reduced to the output tracking of a new non‐minimum‐phase system without delay. A tracking controller, consisting of a linear static‐state feedback term, a switching control term and a nonlinear auxiliary input term, is proposed for robust stabilization of the output‐tracking errors together with the internal dynamics. Numerical simulations are performed to show the main results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Global stabilisation of the PVTOL aircraft with lateral force coupling and bounded inputs

This work is devoted to prove that the nonlinear control scheme previously proposed by Zavala-Río, Fantoni and Lozano for the global stabilisation of the planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft with bounded inputs neglecting the lateral force coupling is robust with respect to the parameter characterising such a lateral force coupling, ϵ, as long as such a parameter takes small enough values. In other words, global stabilisation is achieved even if ϵ > 0, provided that such a parameter be sufficiently small. As far as the authors are aware, such a property has not been proved in other existing control schemes when the value of ϵ is not known. The presented methodology is based on the use of embedded saturation functions. Furthermore, experimental results of the control algorithm implemented on a real prototype are presented.

Global discrete-time stabilization of the PVTOL aircraft based on fast predictive control

This paper deals with stabilization control of a non-minimum phase under-actuated Planar Vertical Take-Off and Landing (PVTOL) aircraft. The proposed control approach, inspired from that proposed in Poulin et al. (2007), is based on a discrete time model of the PVTOL and receding horizon technique to take into account constraints on the control inputs (positivity and boundedness). State constraints can also be handled. The computational cost is reduced by decoupling the optimization problem into two QP problems of reduced dimensions. The minimized cost functions proposed here extends the previous work by allowing state and control weight. The proposed control approach is illustrated through simulation case studies including stabilization and robustness towards parameters uncertainties.

Output tracking for nonlinear non-minimum phase systems and application to PVTOL aircraft

In this paper, we consider a class of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear non-minimum phase systems. For such nonlinear system, an output tracking control approach based on decomposition is presented and applied to a planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft. The external dynamics of the system can be separated into minimum-phase and non-minimum-phase parts. The internal dynamics of the system is separated to linear part and nonlinear part, and the linear part of the internal dynamics is only related with the non-minimum phase part of the external dynamics and the states of itself. Consequently, two low-dimensional controllers are designed separately to stabilize the two subsystems, and make the overall closed-loop system stable in spite of the existence of disturbances. Through this method, the design of the controller parameters is very simple. The theoretical results are confirmed by computer simulations.

Stabilization of a PVTOL Aircraft and an Inertia Wheel Pendulum Using Saturation Technique

In this brief, stabilization designs are presented for a planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft and an inertia wheel pendulum (IWP). In the design procedure, the IWP and a subsystem of the PVTOL aircraft are transformed into chains of integrators with nonlinear perturbations, and then a saturated control technique is employed. The closed-loop systems are shown to be globally asymptotically stable via simple Lyapunov analysis. With the aid of the saturation technique, the designs require neither backstepping/forwarding techniques nor small gain analysis, and their effectiveness is demonstrated by numerical simulations.

A prediction‐based nonlinear controller for stabilization of a non‐minimum phase PVTOL aircraft

AbstractIn this paper, a nonlinear prediction‐based control approach is proposed for stabilization of planar vertical take‐off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft. This system has fewer control inputs than degrees of freedom (i.e. under‐actuated) and has unstable zero dynamics (i.e. non‐minimum phase). The proposed control approach is based on partial feedback linearization, which allows the emergence of a completely linearized sub‐state and internal dynamics. Then, optimal trajectories are proposed for the linearized variables, where the optimization objective is to enhance the behaviour and the stability of the internal dynamics. Stability analysis of the closed‐loop system is performed using a graphical tool based on Poincaré's section. The performance of the proposed scheme is illustrated through simulations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Minimum energy oriented global stabilizing control of the PVTOL aircraft

A global stabilizing control law is proposed for a non-minimum phase under-actuated planar vertical take-off and landing (PVTOL) aircraft. The proposed approach is based on receding horizon control and takes into account the positiveness of the thrust and its saturation to any arbitrary level. Moreover, the angular acceleration can also be bounded. Contrary to non-linear optimal control, the proposed approach, based on quadratic programming, improves significantly the computational cost of the algorithm and the convergence to a solution can be insured. The chosen cost function has a direct link with the energy needed to reach a desired point which is one of the main worries in the design of embedded control systems such as micro unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Control strategy using vision for the stabilization of an experimental PVTOL aircraft setup

In this letter, we stabilize the planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft using a camera. The camera is used for measuring the position and the orientation of the PVTOL moving on an inclined plane. We have used a simple control strategy to stabilize the system in order to facilitate the real experiments. The proposed control law ensures convergence of the state to the origin.