Robust cascaded horizontal-plane trajectory tracking for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper investigates the problem of horizontal-plane trajectory tracking for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) subjected to external disturbances and uncertainties including coupling and unmodeled dynamics. Under the assumption there exist ideal inner-loop controllers, the 12-state model is reduced to a 6-state translational motion model, which is described by a group of simplified nonlinear equations with equivalent disturbances via introducing general aerodynamic models. Then a new cascaded control structure consisting of an outer-loop controller for position control and inner-loop controllers for attitude and thrust control is proposed. Based on feedback linearization technology and signal compensation theory, the proposed controller applied for position control incorporates a nominal linear time-invariant controller and a robust compensator, the latter of which is introduced to restrain the effects of uncertainties and disturbances. The robust performance of the closed-loop system is proved. Actual experimental results conducted on a small fixed-wing aircraft demonstrate that the proposed control approach is effective.     

Output feedback adaptive robust control of hydraulic actuator with friction and model uncertainty compensation

This paper studies output feedback control of hydraulic actuators with modified continuous LuGre model based friction compensation and model uncertainty compensation. An output feedback adaptive robust controller is constructed which combines the adaptive control part and the robust control part seamlessly. The adaptive part is constructed to handle the parametric uncertainties existed in the model. The residuals coming from parameter adaption and the unmodeled dynamics are taken into consideration by the robust part. Since only the position signal is available, the velocity, pressure, and internal friction states are obtained by observation or estimation. The errors coming from observation and estimation are also dealt with the robust part. Furthermore, the convergence of the closed-loop controller–observer scheme is achieved by the Lyapunov method in the presence of parametric uncertainties only. Extensive comparative experiments performed on a hydraulic actuator demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller–observer scheme.     

Quadrotor vehicle control via sliding mode controller driven by sliding mode disturbance observer

Over the last decade, considerable interest has been shown from industry, government and academia to the design of Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) autonomous aerial vehicles. This paper uses the recently developed sliding mode control driven by sliding mode disturbance observer (SMC-SMDO) approach to design a robust flight controller for a small quadrotor vehicle. This technique allows for a continuous control robust to external disturbance and model uncertainties to be computed without the use of high control gain or extensive computational power. The robustness of the control to unknown external disturbances also leads to a reduction of the design cost as less pre-flight analyses are required. The multiple-loop, multiple time-scale SMC-SMDO flight controller is designed to provide robust position and attitude control of the vehicle while relying only on knowledge of the limits of the disturbances. Extensive simulations of a 6 DOF computer model demonstrate the robustness of the control when faced with external disturbances (including wind, collision and actuator failure) as well as model uncertainties.     

Experimental validation of a practical nonlinear control method for hydraulic flight motion simulator

The hydraulic flight motion simulator (HFMS), as a key equipment for hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) simulation in the field of aerospace, is required to have the ability to accurately simulate the aircraft attitude in the laboratory. However, three model uncertainties including nonlinear friction torque, unbalanced gravity torque and time-varying inertia existing in the outer frame of the HFMS at the same time become a main obstacle to achieving its high-precision position control effect. In this paper, according to identification results of friction torque and gravity torque from experiments, combining with simulation result of time-varying inertia of the outer frame from virtual prototype, a disturbance-observer-based nonlinear robust controller with the model compensation was designed on the basis of the mathematical model. Here, since the model compensation has eliminated the main mismatched uncertainties, dual disturbance observers are only necessary to suppress unmodeled mismatched uncertainties and matched uncertainties. Furthermore, the zero bias of the servo valve was also considered to help controller implementation. Finally, the effectiveness and the practicability of the proposed control method were validated by comparative experiments, which demonstrates that the proposed control method is promising and can be applied in the high-precision position control for the HFMS.     

Robust hierarchical control of a laboratory helicopter

This paper deals with the robust position control problem for a three degree-of-freedom (3DOF) laboratory helicopter. The 3DOF helicopter system is a nonlinear multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uncertain system, and has the elevation, pitch, and travel angles. The proposed robust controller is a hierarchical controller including an attitude controller and a position controller. The position controller generates the desired reference of the pitch angle based on the tracking error of the travel angle, while the attitude controller achieves the reference tracking of the pitch and elevation angles. It is proven that the tracking errors of the three angles can converge into the given neighborhoods ultimately. Experimental results on the laboratory helicopter demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical control strategy.     

Robust integral backstepping control for sensorless IPM synchronous motor controller

In this paper, a sensorless speed control for interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSM) is designed by combining a robust backstepping controller with integral actions and an adaptive interconnected observer. The IPMSM control design generally requires rotor position measurement. Then, to eliminate this sensor, an adaptive interconnected observer is designed to estimate the rotor position and the speed. Moreover, a robust nonlinear control based on the backstepping algorithm is designed where an integral action is introduced in order to improve the robust properties of the controller. The stability of the closed-loop system with the observer–controller scheme is analyzed and sufficient conditions are given to prove the practical stability. Simulation results are shown to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme under parametric uncertainties and low speed. Furthermore, the proposed integral backstepping control is compared with the classical backstepping controller.     

Fixed-time nonlinear homogeneous sliding mode approach for robust tracking control of multirotor aircraft: Experimental validation

This paper presents a robust scheme for fixed-time tracking control of a multirotor system. The aircraft is subjected to matched lumped disturbances, i.e., unmodeled dynamics, parameters uncertainties, and external perturbations besides measurement noise. Firstly, a novel Nonlinear Homogeneous Continuous Terminal Sliding Manifold (NHCTSM) based on the weighted homogeneity theory is presented. The sliding manifold is designed with prescribed dynamics featuring Global Asymptotic Stability (GAS) and fixed-time convergence. Then, a novel Fixed-time Non-switching Homogeneous Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode Control (FNHNTSMC) is proposed for the position and attitude loops by employing the developed NHCTSM and an appropriate reaching law. Moreover, the control framework incorporates a disturbance observer to feedforward and compensate for the disturbances. The designed control scheme can drive the states of the system to the desired references in fixed-time irrespective of the values of the Initial Conditions (ICs). Since the existing works on homogeneous controllers rely on the bi-limit homogeneity concept in the convergence proofs, the estimate of the settling-time or its upper-bound cannot be given explicitly. In contrast, this study employs Lyapunov Quadratic Function (LQF) and Algebraic Lyapunov Equation (ALE) in the stability analysis of both controller and observer. Following this method, an expression of the upper-bound of the settling-time is explicitly derived. Furthermore, to assure the Uniform Ultimate Boundedness (UUB) of all signals in the feedback system, the dynamics of the observer and controller are jointly analyzed. Simulations and experiments are conducted to quantify the control performance. The proposed approach achieves superior performance compared with recent literature on fixed-time/finite-time control and a commercially available PID controller. The comparative results witness that the developed control scheme improves the convergence-time, accuracy, and robustness while overcoming the singularity issue and mitigating the chattering effect of conventional SMC.     

A simple structure robust attitude synchronization with input saturation

The attitude synchronization problem of multiple spacecraft is investigated in this paper. A simple cooperative control law, which can render spacecraft formation synchronized to a time-varying reference trajectory globally in the presence of model uncertainties, external disturbances and input saturation, is proposed. The globally asymptotic stability of the controller in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances is proven rigorously through a three-step proof technique. The controller can be used in orbit without modification due to its low computational complexity. Then, the proposed controller is extended to solve the consensus problem for multiple inertial agents with double-integrator dynamics. Finally, Numerical simulations are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed controller.     

Sliding mode attitude tracking of rigid spacecraft with disturbances

The attitude tracking control problem of a spacecraft nonlinear model with external disturbances and inertia uncertainties is addressed in this paper. First, a new sliding mode controller is designed to ensure the asymptotic convergence of the attitude and angular velocity tracking errors against external disturbances and inertia uncertainties by using a modified differentiator to estimate the total disturbances. Second, an adaptive algorithm is applied to compensating the disturbances, by which another sliding mode controller is successfully designed to achieve a high performance on the attitude tracking in the presence of the inertia uncertainties, external disturbances and actuator saturations. Finally, simulation results are presented to illustrate effectiveness of the control strategies.     

Adaptive controller design for spacecraft formation flying using sliding mode controller and neural networks

A spacecraft formation flying controller is designed using a sliding mode control scheme with the adaptive gain and neural networks. Six-degree-of-freedom spacecraft nonlinear dynamic model is considered, and a leader–follower approach is adopted for efficient spacecraft formation flying. Uncertainties and external disturbances have effects on controlling the relative position and attitude of the spacecrafts in the formation. The main benefit of the sliding mode control is the robust stability of the closed-loop system. To improve the performance of the sliding mode control, an adaptive controller based on neural networks is used to compensate for the effects of the modeling error, external disturbance, and nonlinearities. The stability analysis of the closed-loop system is performed using the Lyapunov stability theorem. A spacecraft model with 12 thrusts as actuators is considered for controlling the relative position and attitude of the follower spacecraft. Numerical simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.     

Agile attitude maneuver with active vibration-suppression for flexible spacecraft

This paper addresses the agile attitude maneuver of flexible spacecraft using control moment gyros without modal information. Here, piezoelectric actuators are employed to actively suppress the vibration of flexible appendages. Both the dynamics and the proposed controller are globally developed on the Special Orthogonal Group SO(3), avoiding ambiguities and singularities associated with other attitude representations. More specifically, an observer is first designed to estimate the modal information of vibration. A robust control law is developed by synthesizing a proportional-derivative (PD) controller, an adaptive sliding mode controller, and an active vibration-suppression controller, which use the information of the estimated structural modes. The stability of the closed-loop system is proved using Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical examples are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Robust visual servoing control for quadrotors landing on a moving target

In this paper, a robust visual servoing control approach is proposed to address the landing problem for quadrotors on a moving platform. A vision system is implemented to estimate the position and velocity of the quadrotor. A robust cascade controller is proposed by following backstepping-like fundamentals and robust compensating theory. The effects of time-varying uncertainties, including parameter uncertainties and external disturbances, and time-varying delays resulted from image acquisition, image processing, and sensor measurement delays can be restrained. Experimental results using a quadrotor to land on a ground moving target illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

High dynamic adaptive robust control of load emulator with output feedback signal

This paper is concerned with the high performance adaptive robust control problem for an aircraft load emulator (LE). High dynamic capability is a key performance index of load emulator. However, physical load emulators exist a lot of nonlinearities and modeling uncertainties, which are the main obstacles for achieving high performance of load emulator. To handle the modeling uncertainty and achieve adjustable model-based compensation, firstly, the mathematical model of the load emulator is built, and then a nonlinear adaptive robust controller only with output feedback signal is proposed to improve the tracking accuracy and dynamic response capability. The controller is constructed based on the adaptive robust control framework with necessary design modifications required to accommodate uncertainties and nonlinearities of hydraulic load emulator. In this approach, nonlinearities are canceled by output feedback signal; and modeling errors, including parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities, are dealt with adaptive control and robust control respectively. The resulting controller guarantees a prescribed disturbance attenuation capability in general while achieving asymptotic output tracking in the absence of time-varying uncertainties. Experimental results are obtained to verify the high performance nature of the proposed control strategy, especially the high dynamic capability.     

Robust gain-scheduled output feedback yaw stability control for in-wheel-motor-driven electric vehicles with external yaw-moment

This paper presents a robust gain-scheduled output feedback yaw stability H_∞ controller design to improve vehicle yaw stability and handling performance for in-wheel-motor-driven electric vehicles. The main control objective is to track the desired yaw references by managing the external yaw moment. Since vehicle lateral states are difficult to obtain, the state feedback controller normally requires vehicle full-state feedback is a critical challenge for vehicle lateral dynamics control. To deal with the challenge, the robust gain-scheduled output feedback controller design only uses measurements from standard sensors in modern cars as feedback signals. Meanwhile, parameter uncertainties in vehicle lateral dynamics such as tire cornering stiffness and vehicle inertial parameters are considered and handled via the norm-bounded uncertainty, and linear parameter-varying polytope vehicle model with finite vertices is established through reducing conservative. The resulting robust gain-scheduled output feedback yaw stability controller is finally designed, and solved in term of a set of linear matrix inequalities. Simulations for single lane and double lane change maneuvers are implemented to verify the effectiveness of developed approach with a high-fidelity, CarSim^®, full-vehicle model. It is confirmed from the results that the proposed controller can effectively preserve vehicle yaw stability and lateral handling performance.     

Combined Observer-Controller Synthesis for Electro-Hydraulic Servo System with Modeling Uncertainties and Partial State Feedback

Modeling uncertainties including parameter uncertainty and unmodeled dynamics hinder the development of high-performance tracking controller for hydraulic servo system. The observation for the unknown state is another issue worthy of attention. In this paper, a new seamless observer-controller scheme for hydraulic servo system is proposed with partial feedback. The position signal and the pressure signal are firstly used to build an extended structure estimation system for the unknown state. The advantage of this estimation system is that the state observer provides an extended structure for the parameter adaptation compared to other state observers. Thus the parameter uncertainty can be handled. An adaptive robust controller is synthesized in this paper which includes the adaptive part and the robust part. The adaptive part is used to eliminate the parameter uncertainty. Then the residuals coming from the parameter adaption and the errors coming from the state observation are taken into consideration in the robust part. Moreover, the unmodeled dynamics is also handled by the robust part. Theoretical analysis proves that a prescribed transient performance and the final tracking accuracy can be guaranteed by the proposed observer-controller scheme in the presence of both parameter uncertainty and unmodeled dynamics. Furthermore, the convergence of the closed-loop controller-observer system is achieved with the parametric uncertainty existed only. Extensive comparative experiments performed on a hydraulic actuator demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed observer-controller scheme.     

Robust tracking control for quadrotor with unknown nonlinear dynamics using adaptive neural network based fractional-order backstepping control

This work aims to design a neural network-based fractional-order backstepping controller (NNFOBC) to control a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (QUAV) system under uncertainties and disturbances and unknown dynamics. First, we investigated the dynamic of QUAV composed of six inter-connected nonlinear subsystems. Then, to increase the convergence speed and control precision of the classical backstepping controller (BC), we design a fractional-order BC (FOBC) that provides further degrees of freedom in the control parameters for every subsystem. Besides, designing control is a challenge as the FOBC requires knowledge of accurate mathematical model and the physical parameters of QUAV system. To address this problem, we propose an adaptive approximator that is a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) included in FOBC to fix the unknown dynamics problem which results in the new approach NNFOBC. Furthermore, a robust control term is introduced to increase the tracking performance of a reference signal as parametric uncertainties and disturbances occur. We have used Lyapunov's theorem to derive adaptive laws of control parameters. Finally, the outcoming results confirm that the performance of the proposed NNFOBC controller outperforms both the classical BC , FOBC and a neural network-based classical BC controller (NNBC) and under parametric uncertainties and disturbances.     

Sum-of-squares-based robust H∞ controller design for discrete-time polynomial fuzzy systems

This paper investigates a robust H_∞ controller design for discrete-time polynomial fuzzy systems based on the sum-of-squares (SOS) approach when model uncertainties and external disturbances are simultaneously considered. At the beginning of the controller design procedure, a general discrete-time polynomial fuzzy control system proposed in this paper is used to represent a nonlinear system containing model uncertainties and external disturbances. Subsequently, through use of a nonquadratic Lyapunov function and the H_∞ performance index, the novel SOS-based robust H_∞ stability conditions are derived to guarantee the stability of the entire control system. By solving those stability conditions, control gains of the robust H_∞ polynomial fuzzy controller are obtained. Because the model uncertainties and external disturbances are considered simultaneously in the controller design procedure, the closed-loop control system achieves greater robustness and H_∞ performance against model uncertainties and external disturbances. Moreover, the novel operating-domain-based robust H_∞ stability conditions are derived by considering the operating domain constraint to relax the conservativeness of solving the stability conditions. Finally, simulation results demonstrated the availability and effectiveness of the proposed stability conditions, which are more general than those used in existing approaches.     

Extended-state-observer-based output feedback adaptive control of hydraulic system with continuous friction compensation

This paper presents an extended state observer-based output feedback adaptive controller with a continuous LuGre friction compensation for a hydraulic servo control system. A continuous approximation of the LuGre friction model is employed, which preserves the main physical characteristics of the original model without increasing the complexity of the system stability analysis. By this way, continuous friction compensation is used to eliminate the majority of nonlinear dynamics in hydraulic servo system. Besides, with the development of a new parameter adaption law, the problems of parametric uncertainties are overcome so that more accurate friction compensation is realized. For another, the developed adaption law is driven by tracking errors and observation errors simultaneously. Thus, the burden of extended state observer to solve the remaining uncertainties is alleviated greatly and high gain feedback is avoided, which means better tracking performance and robustness are achieved. The designed controller handles not only matched uncertainties but also unmatched dynamics with requiring little system information, more importantly, it is based on output feedback method, in other words, the synthesized controller only relies on input signal and position output signal of the system, which greatly reduces the effects caused by signal pollution, measurement noise and other unexpected dynamics. Lyapunov-based analysis has proved this strategy presents a prescribed tracking transient performance and final tracking accuracy while obtaining asymptotic tracking performance in the presence of parametric uncertainties only. Finally, comparative experiments are conducted on a hydraulic servo platform to verify the high tracking performance of the proposed control strategy.     

Adaptive sliding mode tracking control for a flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicle

This paper is concerned with the adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) design problem for a flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicle (FAHV). This problem is challenging because of the inherent couplings between the propulsion system, the airframe dynamics and the presence of strong flexibility effects. Due to the enormous complexity of the vehicle dynamics, only the longitudinal model is adopted for control design in the present paper. A linearized model is established around a trim point for a nonlinear, dynamically coupled simulation model of the FAHV, then a reference model is designed and a tracking error model is proposed with the aim of the ASMC problem. There exist the parameter uncertainties and external disturbance in the model, which are not necessary to satisfy the so-called matched condition. A robust sliding surface is designed, and then an adaptive sliding mode controller is designed based on the tracking error model. The proposed controller can drive the error dynamics onto the predefined sliding surface in a finite time, and guarantees the property of asymptotical stability without the information of upper bound of uncertainties as well as perturbations. Finally, simulations are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control methods.     

Robust actuator fault diagnosis scheme for satellite attitude control systems

In this paper, a robust actuator fault diagnosis scheme is investigated for satellite attitude control systems subject to model uncertainties, space disturbance torques and gyro drifts. A nonlinear unknown input observer is designed to detect the occurrence of any actuator fault. Subsequently, a bank of adaptive unknown input observers activated by the detection results are designed to isolate which actuator is faulty and then estimate of the fault parameter. Fault isolation is achieved based on the well known generalized observer strategy. The simulation on a closed-loop satellite control system with time-varying or constant actuator faults in the form of additive and multiplicative unknown dynamics demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed robust fault diagnosis strategy.