Development of Model Predictive Controller for a Tail-Sitter VTOL UAV in Hover Flight
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1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
2
Department of Vehicle Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2018, 18(9), 2859; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092859
Received: 4 August 2018
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Revised: 26 August 2018
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Accepted: 28 August 2018
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Published: 30 August 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Networks, Systems and Applications)
This paper presents a model predictive controller (MPC) for position control of a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) tail-sitter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in hover flight. A ‘cross’ configuration quad-rotor tail-sitter UAV is designed with the capabilities for both hover and high efficiency level flight. The six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) nonlinear dynamic model of the UAV is built based on aerodynamic data obtained from wind tunnel experiments. The model predictive position controller is then developed with the augmented linearized state-space model. Measured and unmeasured disturbance model are introduced into the modeling and optimization process to improve disturbance rejection ability. The MPC controller is first verified and tuned in the hardware-in-loop (HIL) simulation environment and then implemented in an on-board flight computer for real-time indoor experiments. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed MPC position controller has good trajectory tracking performance and robust position holding capability under the conditions of prevailing and gusty winds.
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Keywords:
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV); vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL); tail-sitter; model predictive control (MPC); hardware-in-loop (HIL) simulation; flight experiment
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MDPI and ACS Style
Li, B.; Zhou, W.; Sun, J.; Wen, C.-Y.; Chen, C.-K. Development of Model Predictive Controller for a Tail-Sitter VTOL UAV in Hover Flight. Sensors 2018, 18, 2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092859
AMA Style
Li B, Zhou W, Sun J, Wen C-Y, Chen C-K. Development of Model Predictive Controller for a Tail-Sitter VTOL UAV in Hover Flight. Sensors. 2018; 18(9):2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092859
Chicago/Turabian StyleLi, Boyang, Weifeng Zhou, Jingxuan Sun, Chih-Yung Wen, and Chih-Keng Chen. 2018. "Development of Model Predictive Controller for a Tail-Sitter VTOL UAV in Hover Flight" Sensors 18, no. 9: 2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092859
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