Precise Tracking of Extended Three-Dimensional Dubins Paths for Fixed-Wing Aircraft

Stephan, Johannes; Pfeifle, Ole; Notter, Stefan; Pinchetti, Federico; Fichter, Walter

doi:10.2514/1.g005240

Cited by 19 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Thus, the course angle, yaw angle, and turn rate of aircraft are not controlled directly, but rather through banked-turn maneuvers. For aircraft in coordinated turns, i.e., with zero sideslip angle, the coordinated-turn equation provides a simple relationship between roll angle and resulting turn rate, and is for this reason often used in autopilot design [1,[38][39][40][41][42], including those used in state-of-the-art open-source autopilots [43,44].…”

Section: Introduction 1background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometric Reduced-Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs

Coates

Fossen

2021

Applied Sciences

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This paper presents nonlinear, singularity-free autopilot designs for multivariable reduced-attitude control of fixed-wing aircraft. To control roll and pitch angles, we employ vector coordinates constrained to the unit two-sphere and that are independent of the yaw/heading angle. The angular velocity projected onto this vector is enforced to satisfy the coordinated-turn equation. We exploit model structure in the design and prove almost global asymptotic stability using Lyapunov-based tools. Slowly-varying aerodynamic disturbances are compensated for using adaptive backstepping. To emphasize the practical application of our result, we also establish the ultimate boundedness of the solutions under a simplified controller that only depends on rough estimates of the control-effectiveness matrix. The controller design can be used with state-of-the-art guidance systems for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and is implemented in the open-source autopilot ArduPilot for validation through realistic software-in-the-loop (SITL) simulations.

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Section: Introduction 1background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometric Reduced-Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs

Coates

Fossen

2021

Applied Sciences

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“…For this reason, the test platform is equipped as a free flight wind tunnel. In order to perform measurements in steady, horizontal flight, an autopilot is used to steer the aircraft along a predefined path of constant altitude and velocity, as described in [11]. The measurement system ensures the synchronous logging of all relevant variables (Table 2), as further detailed in Section 3.…”

Section: The Modular Test Platform E-genius-modmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to obtain repeatable measurement flights, the flights are automatically guided along a previously planned flight path. The autopilot system [11] adjusts the flight condition to different, constant flight speeds at an altitude above mean sea level of 650 m. This results in stable conditions in stationary horizontal flight, during which the corresponding input variables of the drive system are recorded. The available endurance of 85 min for one test flight allows for more than 68 measuring sections, which are segmented into phases with different flight velocities.…”

Section: Test Flight Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

In-flight Lift and Drag Estimation of an Unmanned Propeller-Driven Aircraft

et al. 2021

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The high-power density and good scaling properties of electric motors enable new propulsion arrangements and aircraft configurations. This results in distributed propulsion systems allowing to make use of aerodynamic interaction effects between individual propellers and the wing of the aircraft, improving flight performance and thus reducing in-flight emissions. In order to systematically analyze these effects, an unmanned research platform was designed and built at the University of Stuttgart. As the aircraft is being used as a testbed for various flight performance studies in the field of distributed electric propulsion, a methodology for precise identification of its performance characteristics is required. One of the main challenges is the determination of the total drag of the aircraft to be able to identify an exact drag and lift polar in flight. For this purpose, an on-board measurement system was developed which allows for precise determination of the thrust of the aircraft which equals the total aerodynamic drag in steady, horizontal flight. The system has been tested and validated in flight using the unmanned free-flight test platform. The article provides an overview of the measuring system installed, discusses its functionality and shows results of the flight tests carried out.

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“…Research has been done to seek a better guidance design method to resolve previously mentioned shortcomings such as custom controller design, parameter tuning, low design efficiency and unsatisfactory control performance brought by the wildly used classical methods. The guidance methods for three-dimensional reference trajectory capturing and following can be categorized into three classes: error dynamic based, virtual potential field based, and virtual target following based approaches [3]. Examples of controlling tracking error dynamics [5,6] demonstrate good flight performance and global stability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel INDI based Guidance Law for Fixed Wing Aircrafts: Derivation and Application

Li¹,

Ding²

2022

Preprint

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In this paper, we comprehensively present and derive two INDI principle based guidance laws for fixed wing aircrafts. More specifically, two control methods are mathematically derived in detail, where the first decouples the lateral and the longitudinal channels while the second takes the interactions into account. The cumbersome mathematical operations involved in the derivation process aim at reaching a more concise control method and also at providing the community with clearer physical concepts behind this formula. The reason for manipulating transformation matrices is to find a univariate function and to isolate the variable as a virtual input. Efficient and modular guidance control law is then permitted. Lastly, the proposed guidance methods are applied to a 6 dof nonlinear platform under various flight modes to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages.

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Precise Tracking of Extended Three-Dimensional Dubins Paths for Fixed-Wing Aircraft

Cited by 19 publications

References 13 publications

Geometric Reduced-Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs

Geometric Reduced-Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs

In-flight Lift and Drag Estimation of an Unmanned Propeller-Driven Aircraft

A Novel INDI based Guidance Law for Fixed Wing Aircrafts: Derivation and Application

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