The problem of reliable design of vector-field path following in the presence of uncertain course dynamics
X. Wang (TU Delft - Team Bart De Schutter)
Spandan Roy (International Institute of Information Technology)
S. Fari (TU Delft - Team Bart De Schutter, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
S. Baldi (Southeast University, TU Delft - Team Bart De Schutter)
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Abstract
Reliable guidance of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is challenging, as their high maneuverability exposes them to several dynamical changes and parametric uncertainties. Reliability of state-of-the-art guidance methods is often at stake, as these methods heavily rely on precise UAV course dynamics, assumed in a decoupled first-order form with known time constant. To improve reliability of guidance for fixed-wing UAVs, this work proposes a novel vector field law that can handle uncertain course time constant and state-dependent uncertainty in the course dynamics arising from coupling. Stability is studied in the Lyapunov framework, while reliability of the proposed method is tested on a software-in-the loop UAV simulator. The simulations show that, in the presence of such uncertainty, the proposed method outperforms the standard vector field approaches.