The problem of reliable design of vector-field path following in the presence of uncertain course dynamics

Journal Article (2021)
Author(s)

Ximan Wang (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)

Spandan Roy (International Institute of Information Technology)

Stefano Farì (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))

Simone Baldi (Southeast University, TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)

Research Group
Team Bart De Schutter
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.2409 Final published version
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Publication Year
2021
Language
English
Research Group
Team Bart De Schutter
Issue number
2
Volume number
53 (2020)
Pages (from-to)
9399-9404
Event
21st IFAC World Congress 2020 (2020-07-12 - 2020-07-17), Berlin, Germany
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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.