A Fixed-Wing UAV Formation Algorithm Based on Vector Field Guidance

The vector field method was originally proposed to guide a single fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) towards a desired path. In this work, a non-uniform vector field method is proposed that changes in both magnitude and direction, for the purpose of achieving formations of UAVs. As compared to related work in the literature, the...

Reinforcement Learning for Flight Control of the Flying V

Recent research on the Flying V - a flying-wing long-range passenger aircraft - shows that its airframe design is 25% more aerodynamically efficient than a conventional tube-and-wing airframe. The Flying V is therefore a promising contribution towards reduction in climate impact of long-haul flights. However, some design aspects of the Flying V...

Embedding Adaptive Features in the ArduPilot Control Architecture for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is often subject to state-dependent alterations and unstructured uncertainty factors, such as unmodelled dynamics, environmental weather disturbances, aerodynamics gradients, or changes in inertia and mass due to payloads. While a large number of autopilot solutions have been proposed to operate...

ArduPilot-Based Adaptive Autopilot: Architecture and Software-in-The-Loop Experiments

This article presents an adaptive method for ArduPilot-based autopilots of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). ArduPilot is a popular open-source unmanned vehicle software suite. We explore how to augment the PID loops embedded inside ArduPilot with a model-free adaptive control method. The adaptive augmentation, adopted for both...

An Underactuated Control System Design for Adaptive Autopilot of Fixed-Wing Drones

Effective design of autopilots for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is still a great challenge, due to unmodeled effects and uncertainties that these vehicles exhibit during flight. Unmodeled effects and uncertainties comprise longitudinal/lateral cross-couplings, as well as poor knowledge of equilibrium points (trimming points) of...

Impact of Automated Highway Autopilot on the Average Network Travel Times and Total Distance Travelled

Allowing Level 4 Automated Vehicles (AVs) to drive on highways could potentially have an impact on the road network performance. Although it might probably take a while before AVs are on the road, National Road Authorities (NRAs) are already concerned about understanding what changes would be required on their current infrastructure to make it...

Impact of Automated Highway Autopilot on the Performance and Safety of Weaving Sections

Allowing level 4 Automated Vehicles to drive on highways could significantly impact the traffic efficiency and safety. Although it might probably take a while before AVs are on the road, NRAs (National Road Authorities) are already investigating how to adapt their current infrastructure to make it ready for AVs – while optimizing both traffic...

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...

Control Loop Design for a Helicopter Tactile Cue Trim Actuator

Force feedback in helicopters can improve the performance of the pilot, decrease direct maintenance costs and increase the safety of every flight. Traditional force feedback is done with the use of a force sensor. In this thesis the use of a position based, feedforward control loop to achieve the same purpose is investigated. The limits of...

Lisa-S 2.8g autopilot for GPS-based flight of MAVs

Recent advances in sensor miniaturization have enabled the development of a miniaturized fully functional autopilot. In this article, the open hardware and open software Paparazzi-UAV Lisa-S micro autopilot is presented, weighing only 2.8 grams and measuring 2 by 2 centimeters. It incorporates 2-way telemetry with a ground station, a Spektrum...

Lisa-S 2.8g autopilot for GPS-based flight of MAVs

Recent advances in sensor miniaturization have enabled the development of a miniaturized fully functional autopilot. In this article, the open hardware and open software Paparazzi-UAV Lisa-S micro autopilot is presented, weighing only 2.8 grams and measuring 2 by 2 centimeters. It incorporates 2-way telemetry with a ground station, a Spektrum...

Research, design, simulation and implementation of an automatic flight control system for a real-time flight simulator

Vertigo Flight Simulation is a company located in The Netherlands with its mission being to design, produce and sell low cost flight simulation devices to all levels of the flight training market. One of the products which is developed by Vertigo Flight Simulation is the Vertigo P-2 Trainer. The P-2 Trainer is a fixed-base flight simulator...