System Identification for Small, Low-Cost, Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aircraft

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1117-1130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Dorobantu ◽  
Austin Murch ◽  
Bérénice Mettler ◽  
Gary Balas
2020 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 105551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinan Yu ◽  
Pan Tang ◽  
Tao Song ◽  
Defu Lin

Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Khalesi ◽  
Hassan Salarieh ◽  
Mahmoud Saadat Foumani

In recent years, unmanned aerial systems have attracted great attention due to the electronic systems technology advancements. Among these vehicles, unmanned helicopters are more important because of their special abilities and superior performance. The complex nonlinear dynamic system (caused by main rotor flapping dynamics coupled with the rigid body rotational motion) and considerable effects of ambient disturbance make their utilization hard in actual missions. Attitude dynamics have the main role in helicopter stabilization, so implementing proper control system for attitude is an important issue for unmanned helicopter hovering and trajectory tracking performance. Besides this, experimental utilization of low-cost flight control system for unmanned helicopters is still a challenging task. In this article, dynamic modeling, system identification, and robust control system implementation of roll and pitch dynamics of an unmanned helicopter is performed. A TRex-600E radio-controlled helicopter is equipped with a novel low-cost flight control system designed and constructed based on Raspberry Pi Linux-based microcomputer. Using Raspberry Pi makes this platform simpler to utilize and more time and cost-effective than similar platforms used before. The experiments are performed on a 5-degree-of-freedom testbed. The robust control system is designed based on [Formula: see text] method and is evaluated in real flight tests. The experiment results show that the proposed platform has the ability to successfully control the roll and pitch dynamics of the unmanned helicopter.


Author(s):  
Georgios D. Karatzinis ◽  
Savvas D. Apostolidis ◽  
Athanasios Ch. Kapoutsis ◽  
Liza Panagiotopoulou ◽  
Yiannis S. Boutalis ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
John H. Mott ◽  
Zachary A. Marshall ◽  
Mark A. Vandehey ◽  
Mike May ◽  
Darcy M. Bullock

Versatile unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms have grown significantly in popularity by virtue of their low cost relative to manned aircraft, high performance, and operational simplicity. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently regulates the operating altitudes, speeds, weights, pilot qualifications, and locations of drones, a lack of capacity and technology prohibits sufficient enforcement of these restrictions. To assess the frequency and severity of manned and unmanned aircraft separation incidents, and to examine the emerging sensor technology available to facilitate such assessment, flight operations in controlled airspace around Orlando Melbourne International Airport (KMLB) were monitored. One sensor system deployed at KMLB reported UAS locations, altitudes, and flight durations, while a second system reported manned aircraft positions, altitudes, and timestamps using ADS-B signals. Evaluation of flight operations data in the vicinity of KMLB revealed eight potential drone incursions over a 2-week period. Aircraft flight paths were retroactively tracked to map these unmanned and manned aerial conflicts; aircraft identification information was also researched to contextualize the incidents. The frequency and magnitude of identified events suggest the need for additional research to further explore the problem scope and potential solutions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 124-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yucai Zhu ◽  
Rohit Patwardhan ◽  
Stephen B. Wagner ◽  
Jun Zhao

2014 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Mulero-Pázmány ◽  
Juan José Negro ◽  
Miguel Ferrer

Accidents on power lines are one of the most important causes of man-induced mortality for raptors and soaring birds. The factors that condition the hazard have been extensively studied, and currently there are a variety of technical solutions available to mitigate the risk. Most of the resources in conservation projects to reduce avian mortality now are invested in fieldwork to monitor the lines, which diverts the resources available to install actual corrective measures to mitigate bird hazard. Little progress has been achieved in the methodology to characterize line risk, which is an expensive, tedious, and time-consuming task. In this work we describe the use of low cost small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) equipped with on-board cameras for power line surveillance. As a case study, we characterized four power lines, geo-referenced every pylon in selected portions, and assessed their hazard for birds. We compare the effectiveness of two variants of the sUAS method for data acquisition and two methods of plane control. This work provides evidence of the usefulness of sUAS as a fast, inexpensive, and practical tool in conservation biology, adding to their already known applications in wildlife monitoring, the environmental impact assessment of infrastructures.


Author(s):  
Calvin Coopmans ◽  
Long Di ◽  
Austin Jensen ◽  
Aaron A. Dennis ◽  
YangQuan Chen

Remote sensing is a field traditionally dominated by expensive, large-scale operations. This paper presents our efforts to improve our unmanned aircraft (UA) platforms for low-cost personal remote sensing purposes. Safety concerns are first emphasized regarding the local airspace and multiple fail-safe features are shown in the current system. Then the AggieAir unmanned system architecture is briefly described including the Paparazzi UA autopilot, AggieAir JAUS implementation, AggieNav navigation unit and payload integration. Some preliminary flight test results and images acquired using an example thermal IR payload system are also shown. Finally Multi-UAV and heterogeneous platform capabilities are discussed with respect to their applications. Based on our approaches on the new architecture design, personal remote sensing on smaller-scale operations can be more beneficial and common.


2014 ◽  
Vol 629 ◽  
pp. 202-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarrow Sarson-Lawrence ◽  
Roberto Sabatini ◽  
Reece Clothier ◽  
Alessandro Gardi

One of the key challenges of designing low-cost Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) is to ensure acceptable and certifiable reliability factors for the adopted Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) components since their reliability is often not quantified. In this paper, the experimental results obtained for quantifying the reliability of mini Unmanned Aircraft (UA) servomotors (by recording their time-to-failure on a defined set of test runs) are presented. The Weibull prediction model is adopted for quantitative analysis and the associated key mathematical models. The methodology adopted for performing the reliability analysis including the test bench setup used for the experiments is described. The results indicate a level of reliability expected for low-cost servos. Such servos could be used for low-risk UAS operations (e.g. small UA operating over sparsely populated regions) and where the economics of the business case permitted higher loss rates.


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