Vector field formation control: Fixed-wing formation control based on time-varying vector field

The mission control of a fixed-wings UAV is slightly more complex compared to other models like quad-rotors or unicycles since the dynamic of a fixed-wing aircraft does not allow rapid direction changes or stop-rotate-go type of movements. Those restriction needs to be taken into consideration when building a mission control system, moreover,...

Autopilot Design for Software-in-the-Loop Validation of Fixed-wing UAV Guidance Laws

UnmannedAerial Vehicles(UAVs) have multi-domain applications and fixed-wing UAVs are a widely used class. There is ongoing research on topics in view to optimize the control and guidance of UAVs. This work explores the design, implementation and Software-in-the-Loop validation of an autopilot using adaptive guidance laws with emphasis on...

Adaptive Synchronization over Uncertain Multi-Agent Systems: A distributed homogenization-based approach

A challenging task in synchronization of multi-agent systems is steering the network towards a coherent solution when the dynamics of the constituent systems are heterogeneous and residing in a possibly large uncertainty set. In this situation, synchronization can be achieved via adaptive protocols (with adaptive feedback gains, or adaptive...

Estimating uncertainties in cooperative networks

The cooperative output regulation problem has attracted considerable attention due to its wide applications in several real life problems; in the past decade, the cooperative control of multi-agent systems has become a trendy topic in the control community.<br/>In the cooperative output regulation problem the main purpose consists in achieving...

Synchronization of Uncertain Heterogeneous Agents: An Adaptive Virtual Model Reference Approach

Synchronization of Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) has the potential to benefit many technological<br/>areas such as formation control for unmanned vehicles, cooperative adaptive<br/>cruise control, and spacecraft attitude control. Information plays a crucial role in MASs:<br/>in centralized approaches, a central node utilizes global information to...

Modelling and control of Cyber-Physical and Human Systems in an office building

Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) units in commercial buildings account for a huge portion of global energy consumption. There is an ever growing need to optimize the energy consumption of an HVAC system along with a system-of-subsystems entity that must be accurately integrated and controlled by the building automation system to...

Decision Making under Uncertainty for Automated Vehicles in Urban Situations

One of the most crucial links to building an autonomous system is the task of decision making. The ability of a vehicle to make robust decisions on its own by predicting and assessing future consequences is what makes it intelligent. This task of decision making becomes even more complex due to the fact that the real world is uncertain,...

Development of CRONE reset control

In high-tech industry (sub)nanometre precision motion control is essential. For example wafer scanners, used for production of integrated circuits, have to provide (sub)nanometre precision positioning whilst satisfying challenging requirements on speed at the same time. It is in demanding cases like this that different requirements begin to...

Design and Implementation of a Path Following System for an Autonomous Vehicle

At this moment a revolution is going on in the development of our vehicles. The driver is going to be replaced by the vehicle itself. To investigate this autonomy Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is project leader of a partnership called Dutch Automated Vehicle Initiative (DAVI). This group of industry and academics are combining their...

Automation of Caeli: A High Performance Raman Lidar

Caeli is the CESARWater Vapour, Aerosol and Cloud Lidar and is a multiwavelength, high-performance Raman lidar which is stationed at the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR) in the Netherlands. The instrument was developed as a key instrument for CESAR to strengthen the sites capabilities as a vertical profiling station. It...

A Safety and Comfort Lane Change for Sportive Highly Automated Driving Truck

The major goal of this master thesis is to improve truck safety and comfort during lane change manoeuvres. This thesis focuses on the scenario of the driver doing sports exercises inside the cabin when the vehicle is driving automatically on a highway. This topic is one of the foci of the international GlobalDrive project from Technical...

Adaptive Optimal Control of Systems with Input Saturation: Introducing the Safe-GPI Algorithm

The main goal of this thesis is to develop and implement an algorithm that is capable of finding and applying the optimal policy for a class of continuous-time linear time-invariant systems which are subjected to input saturation. An algorithm is proposed that is capable of doing this on-line (i.e. in real time while controlling the system)...

Control of a subsea multiphase boosting station

Subsea multiphase boosting is a technology that is gaining interest from oil & gas operators and suppliers. In response to the growing interest in multiphase boosting technology, GE is working on the development of a subsea multiphase boosting station. In this work, controller synthesis needs are identified for safe and reliable operation of the...

Optimal Swing-up Control of an Inverted Pendulum

Inverted pendulums have been classic setups in the control laboratories since the 1950s. They were originally used to illustrate ideas in linear control such as stabilization of unstable systems. Because of their nonlinear nature, pendulums have maintained their usefulness and they are now used to illustrate many of the ideas emerging in the...

Central Differential Control of an Active Four Wheel Drive Vehicle

Four Wheel Drive (4WD) vehicles are almost as old as the automobile itself, however for more than half a century the main use case of a 4WD system was to improve traction on off-road terrains. The advancement in technology over the recent decades resulted in more advanced and light weight solutions shifting the focus more towards sports cars and...

Safe Interaction Between Lateral and Longitudinal Adaptive Cruise Control in Autonomous Vehicles

According to the statistics, driver error is the main reason for the road accidents: this has motivated an intensive research on intelligent vehicles equipped with automated driving technology, active safety and driver-assistance systems so as to enhance the safety of drivers, facilitate vehicle controllability and stability, and improve driving...

Performance Assessment for Advanced Process Control

Model predictive control (MPC) is a control technique that is frequently used in the process industry. Two advantages of model predictive controllers is their ability to predict the impact of disturbances, and to easily account for constraints. However, a disadvantage of model predictive controllers is that they rely on mathematical models of...

Optimal model distribution in multi model adaptive control with switching

Multi model adaptive control is an emerging field that has proven to be successful in mitigating limitations of classical adaptive control by providing more quicker and faster adaptation. In this method instead of one single parameter varying controller, multiple fixed parameter controllers pertaining to different operation regimes are utilized....