Vector Field Based Path Following for UAVs using Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion

Master thesis (2018)

Authors

S.S. Sharma Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

E.J.J. Smeur (supervisor 1)
Q. P. Chu (supervisor 1)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: © 2018 Suresh Sharma
Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion Path Following Vector Field Multirotor
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

29-03-2018

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

This work presents a vector field based path following method to be used by Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The desired path to be followed is a smooth planar path defined in its implicit form. The vector field around the desired path is then constructed using the implicit function, such that the integral curves of the vector field converge to the path. The algorithm takes into account the future change in the trajectory as well as the current state of the UAV in order to calculate the desired linear acceleration, which is then tracked using the Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) controller in the autopilot. The implementation also allows for the velocity of the UAV to be controlled independently. The efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated using real world flight tests, and the performance is shown to be better than the
traditional carrot-chasing controller.