Organizational Unit:
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering

Research Organization Registry ID
Description
Previous Names
Parent Organization
Parent Organization
Organizational Unit
Includes Organization(s)

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Item
    Flight-Test Results of Autonomous Airplane Transitions Between Steady-Level and Hovering Flight
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-03) Johnson, Eric N. ; Wu, Allen D. ; Neidhoefer, James C. ; Kannan, Suresh K. ; Turbe, Michael A.
    Linear systems can be used to adequately model and control an aircraft in either ideal steady-level flight or in ideal hovering flight. However, constructing a single unified system capable of adequately modeling or controlling an airplane in steady-level flight and in hovering flight, as well as during the highly nonlinear transitions between the two, requires the use of more complex systems, such as scheduled-linear, nonlinear, or stable adaptive systems. This paper discusses the use of dynamic inversion with real-time neural network adaptation as a means to provide a single adaptive controller capable of controlling a fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system in all three flight phases: steady-level flight, hovering flight, and the transitions between them. Having a single controller that can achieve and transition between steady-level and hovering flight allows utilization of the entire low-speed flight envelope, even beyond stall conditions. This method is applied to the GTEdge, an eight-foot wingspan, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system that has been fully instrumented for autonomous flight. This paper presents data from actual flight-test experiments in which the airplane transitions from high-speed, steady-level flight into a hovering condition and then back again.
  • Item
    Adaptive, Integrated Guidance and Control Design for Line-of-Sight-Based Formation Flight
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-10) Kim, Byoung Soo ; Calise, Anthony J. ; Sattigeri, Ramachandra J.
    This paper presents an integrated guidance and control design for formation flight using a combination of adaptive output feedback and backstepping techniques. We formulate the problem as an adaptive output feedback control problem for a line-of-sight-based formation flight configuration of a leader and a follower aircraft. The design objective is to regulate range and two bearing angle rates while maintaining turn coordination. Adaptive neural networks are trained online with available measurements to compensate for unmodeled nonlinearities in the design process. These include uncertainties due to unknown leader aircraft acceleration, and the modeling error due to parametric uncertainties in the aircraft aerodynamic derivatives. One benefit of this approach is that the guidance and flight control design process is integrated. Simulation results using a nonlinear 6 degrees-of-freedom simulation model are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the approach by comparing the performance with an adaptive timescale separation-based guidance and control design.
  • Item
    Adaptive Output Feedback Control of a Flexible Base Manipulator
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-07) Yang, Bong-Jun ; Calise, Anthony J. ; Craig, James I.
    This paper considers augmentation of an existing inertial damping mechanism by neural network-based adaptive control, for controlling a micromanipulator that is serially attached to a macromanipulator. The approach is demonstrated using an experimental test bed in which the micromanipulator is mounted at the tip of a cantilevered beam that resembles a macromanipulator with its joint locked. The inertial damping control combines acceleration feedback with position control for the micromanipulator so as to simultaneously suppress vibrations caused by the flexible beam while achieving precise tip positioning. Neural network-based adaptive elements are employed to augment the inertial damping controller when the existing control system becomes deficient due to modeling errors and uncertain operating conditions. There were several design challenges that had to be faced from an adaptive control perspective. One challenge was the presence of a nonminimum phase zero in an output feedback adaptive control design setting in which the regulated output variable has zero relative degree. Other challenges included flexibility in the actuation devices, lack of control degrees of freedom, and high dimensionality of the system dynamics. In this paper we describe how we overcame these difficulties by modifying a previous augmenting adaptive approach to make it suitable for this application. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the augmenting approach to adaptive output feedback control design.
  • Item
    Real-Time Vision-Based Relative Aircraft Navigation
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-03) Johnson, Eric N. ; Calise, Anthony J. ; Watanabe, Yoko ; Ha, Jin-Cheol ; Neidhoefer, James C.
    This paper describes two vision-based techniques for the navigation of an aircraft relative to an airborne target using only information from a single camera fixed to the aircraft. These techniques are motivated by problems such as "see and avoid", pursuit, formation flying, and in-air refueling. By applying an Extended Kalman Filter for relative state estimation, both the velocity and position of the aircraft relative to the target can be estimated. While relative states such as bearing can be estimated fairly easily, estimating the range to the target is more difficult because it requires achieving valid depth perception with a single camera. The two techniques presented here offer distinct solutions to this problem. The first technique, Center Only Relative State Estimation, uses optimal control to generate an optimal (sinusoidal) trajectory to a desired location relative to the target that results in accurate range-to-target estimates while making minimal demands on the image processing system.The second technique, Subtended Angle Relative State Estimation, uses more rigorous image processing to arrive at a valid range estimate without requiring the aircraft to follow a prescribed path. Simulation results indicate that both methods yield range estimates of comparable accuracy while placing different demands on the aircraft and its systems.