Fault Detection and Estimation of Fault Redundant Airspeed using Unscented Kalman Filter

Having a reliable flight envelope is of paramount importance for safe flight operations. Parameters that determine the safe flight envelope are airspeed , angle of attack, angle of sideslip, Euler angle and load factor. These parameters need to be fault redundant, In order to address this challenge, an unscented Kalman estimation routine is...

Guidance, Navigation and Control for Active Debris Removal

To ensure long-term sustainable access to space, it is of paramount importance that humankind acts to alleviate the space debris problem in near vicinity of Earth. The most effective mitigation strategy for large debris items is provided by active debris removal missions, which remove one or more resident space objects from orbit. The execution...

Real-time train motion parameter estimation using an Unscented Kalman Filter

Train movement dynamics are usually modelled by means of Newton's second law. The resulting dynamic equation can be very precise if the parameters that it depends on are determined accurately. However, these parameters may vary in time and show wide variations, making the calibration task nontrivial and jeopardizing the performance of a broad...

UKF-based Identification of Time-Varying Manual Control Behaviour

This paper describes a novel method for time-varying identification of Human Controller (HC) manual control parameters (called UKF-FPV), based on a steady-state (constant state covariance) Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF). This approach requires no a priori assumptions on the shape of HC parameter variations, which is a potential advantage over...

Performance of a Flush Airdata Sensor in a Particle Filter-Based Re-entry Navigation System

Re-entry is a term that is applied when one would like to transport some (human) payload from an orbit around a certain body towards the surface of that body. With an entry velocity of multiple kilometers per second, having the vehicle carrying this payload not smashed into pieces at the end of flight is one of the key points of re-entry. Using...

Improved Stewart platform state estimation using inertial and actuator position measurements

Accurate and reliable estimation of the kinematic state of a six degrees-of-freedom Stewart platform is a problem of interest in various engineering disciplines. Particularly so in the area of flight simulation, where the Stewart platform is in widespread use for the generation of motion similar to that experienced in actual flight. Accurate...

Motion tracking in field sports using GPS and IMU

Injuries are a sportsman’s worst nightmare: They withhold players from playing, they weaken teams and they force clubs to buy a bench-full of substitutes. On top of that, injuries can cause an awful lot of pain. Regulating match and training intensity can drastically decrease the risk of getting injured. Furthermore, it can optimally prepare...

Nonlinear model parameter identification for ice-induced vibrations

The problem of level ice interacting with compliant structures is addressed, where the ice loads can depend on the dynamical behavior of the structures. We are interested in a special type of ice-induced vibration, known as frequency lock-in, and characterized by having the dominant frequency of the ice forces near a natural frequency of the...

Fault Diagnosis and Fault-Tolerant Control for Aircraft Subjected to Sensor and Actuator Faults

Observing the state of balance with a single upper-body sensor

The occurrence of falls is an urgent challenge in our aging society. For wearable devices that actively prevent falls or mitigate their consequences, a critical prerequisite is knowledge on the user’s current state of balance. To keep such wearable systems practical and to achieve high acceptance, only very limited sensor instrumentation is...

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...

Observer-Based State of Balance Estimation of the Walking Human with Upper Body Inertial Measurement Unit Data

Knowledge of the state of balance of the moving human is essential for the design of fall detection algorithms and wearable robotic controllers for balance assistance. Still, there is no known general method to make an online estimation of the state of balance of the walking human, with the limited and local sensor measurements that are usually...

Sensor Fusion and Observer Design for Dynamic Positioning

The fusion of measurements from distributed sensors for dynamic positioning (DP) system based on state estimation algorithms is studied in this thesis in order to increase the accuracy and redundancy of the reference system in DP and a state observer is also designed to estimate of the low frequency vessel motion for the input of DP controller....

Estimation of vehicle handling states

With the ever increasing demand of cars, safety is of prime concern to automobile manufactures across the world. Companies strive for the vision of "Zero accidents" through high quality and innovative products that reduce the frequency of accidents as well as their consequences. The auto industry has been exerting a myriad of state-of-the-art...

Nonlinear State Estimation for a Bipedal Robot

Humanoid robots could perform a large variety of tasks, ranging from helping the elderly and entertainment to carrying out repairs in hazardous environments such as nuclear power plants. Therefore, they are an important topic of research. However, controlling the balance of two-legged robots still proves to be a challenge, especially during more...

Optical Flow Based State Estimation for an Indoor Micro Aerial Vehicle

This work addresses the problem of indoor state estimation for autonomous flying vehicles with an optic flow approach. The paper discusses a sensor configuration using six optic flow sensors of the computer mouse type augmented by a three-axis accelerometer to estimate velocity, rotation, attitude and viewing distances. It is shown that the...