Attitude-pendulum-sloshing coupled dynamics of quadrotors slung liquid containers

Quadrotors suspended water containers may be used for fire-fighting services. Unfortunately, the complicated dynamics in this type of system degrade the flight safety because of coupling effects among the quadrotor attitude, container swing, and liquid sloshing. However, few effects have been directed at the attitude-pendulum-sloshing dynamics in this type of aerial cranes. A novel planar model of a quadrotor carrying a liquid tank under dual-hoist mechanisms is presented. The model includes vehicle-attitude dynamics, load-swing dynamics, and fluid-sloshing dynamics. Resulting from the model, a new method is proposed to control coupled oscillations among the vehicle attitude, load swing, and fluid sloshing. Numerous simulations on the nonlinear model demonstrate that the control method can reduce the undesirable oscillations, stabilize the quadrotor’s attitude, and reject the external disturbances. The theoretical findings may also extend to the three-dimensional dynamics of quadrotors slung liquid tanks, and other types of aerial vehicles transporting liquid containers including helicopters or tiltrotors.

Autonomous Landing of a Quadrotor on a Moving Platform via Model Predictive Control

Landing on a moving platform is an essential requirement to achieve high-performance autonomous flight with various vehicles, including quadrotors. We propose an efficient and reliable autonomous landing system, based on model predictive control, which can accurately land in the presence of external disturbances. To detect and track the landing marker, a fast two-stage algorithm is introduced in the gimbaled camera, while a model predictive controller with variable sampling time is used to predict and calculate the entire landing trajectory based on the estimated platform information. As the quadrotor approaches the target platform, the sampling time is gradually shortened to feed a re-planning process that perfects the landing trajectory continuously and rapidly, improving the overall accuracy and computing efficiency. At the same time, a cascade incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion control method is adopted to track the planned trajectory and improve robustness against external disturbances. We carried out both simulations and outdoor flight experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed landing system. The results show that the quadrotor can land rapidly and accurately even under external disturbance and that the terminal position, speed and attitude satisfy the requirements of a smooth landing mission.

Full-Order Sliding Mode Bounded Control for Euler-Lagrange Systems with External Disturbances

This paper researches two finite-time bounded control methods for Euler-Lagrange systems exposed to external disturbances. A novel full-order terminal sliding mode surface that is convenient for solving the input constraints is designed based on the characters of the hyperbolic tangent function. By using the designed full-order terminal sliding mode surface, the finite-time controller with input constraints can deal with external disturbances with the exactly known upper bound. Further, an adaptive finite-time bounded controller is designed to deal with the external disturbances with the upper bound that cannot be accurately known. Finally, the finite-time stability of the system is proved by using Lyapunov theory and numerical simulations.

Variable Gain Prescribed Performance Control for Dynamic Positioning of Ships with Positioning Error Constraints

In this paper, a variable gain prescribed performance control law is proposed for dynamic positioning (DP) of ships with positioning error constraints, input saturation and unknown external disturbances. The error performance index functions are designed to preset the prescribed performance bounds and the error mapping functions are constructed to incorporate the prescribed performance bounds into the DP control design. The variable gain technique is used to limit the output amplitude of the control law to avoid input saturation of the system by dynamically adjusting the control gain of the DP control law according to the positioning errors, and the error mapping function replaces the positioning error as a recursive sliding-mode surface to realize the prescribed performance control of the system and guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system with variable control gains. It has been proved that the proposed DP control law can make the uniformly ultimately boundedness of all signals in the DP closed-loop control system. The numerical simulation results illustrate that the proposed control law can make the ship’s position and heading maintain at the desired value with positioning error constraints, enhance the non-fragility of the DP control law to the perturbation of system’s parameters and improve the system’s rejection ability to external disturbances.

Adaptive Integral Sliding Mode Based Course Keeping Control of Unmanned Surface Vehicle

This paper investigates the course keeping control problem for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in the presence of unknown disturbances and system uncertainties. The simulation study combines two different types of sliding mode surface based control approaches due to its precise tracking and robustness against disturbances and uncertainty. Firstly, an adaptive linear sliding mode surface algorithm is applied, to keep the yaw error within the desired boundaries and then an adaptive integral non-linear sliding mode surface is explored to keep an account of the sliding mode condition. Additionally, a method to reconfigure the input parameters in order to keep settling time, yaw rate restriction and desired precision within boundary conditions is presented. The main strengths of proposed approach is simplicity, robustness with respect to external disturbances and high adaptability to static and dynamics reference courses without the need of parameter reconfiguration.

Active Model-Based Hysteresis Compensation and Tracking Control of Pneumatic Artificial Muscle

The hysteretic nonlinearity of pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) is the main factor that degrades its tracking accuracy. This paper proposes an efficient hysteresis compensation method based on the active modeling control (AMC). Firstly, the Bouc–Wen model is adopted as the reference model to describe the hysteresis of the PAM. Secondly, the modeling errors are introduced into the reference model, and the unscented Kalman filter is used to estimate the state of the system and the modeling errors. Finally, a hysteresis compensation strategy is designed based on AMC. The compensation performances of the nominal controller with without AMC were experimentally tested on a PAM. The experimental results show that the proposed controller is more robust when tracking different types of trajectories. In the transient, both the overshoot and oscillation can be successfully attenuated, and fast convergence is achieved. In the steady-state, the proposed controller is more robust against external disturbances and measurement noise. The proposed controller is effective and robust in hysteresis compensation, thus improving the tracking performance of the PAM.

24 Sectors DTC Control with Fuzzy Hysteresis Comparators for DFIM Fed by the Three-level NPC Inverter

This article presents 24 sectors direct torque control (DTC) with fuzzy hysteresis comparators for the doubly-fed induction motor (DFIM) using a three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter. The designed DTC technique of the DFIM combines the advantages of the DTC strategy and fuzzy logic controller. The reaching conditions, stability, and robustness of the DFIM with the designed DTC technique are guaranteed. The designed DTC technique is insensitive to uncertainties, including parameter variations and external disturbances in the whole control process. Finally, the designed DTC technique with fuzzy hysteresis comparators is used to regulate the electromagnetic torque and the flux of the DFIM fed by the three-level NPC inverter and confirms the validity of the designed DTC technique. Results of simulations containing tests of robustness and tracking tests are presented.

Sliding Mode Control of Flexible Articulated Manipulator Based on Robust Observer

In this paper, a robust observer-based sliding mode control algorithm is proposed to address the modelling and measurement inaccuracies, load variations, and external disturbances of flexible articulated manipulators. Firstly, a sliding mode observer was designed with exponential convergence to observe system state accurately and to overcome the measuring difficulty of the state variables, unmeasurable quantities, and external disturbances. Next, a robust sliding mode controller was developed based on the observer, such that the output error of the system converges to zero in finite time. In this way, the whole system achieves asymptotic stability. Finally, the convergence conditions of the observer were theoretically analyzed to verify the convergence of the proposed algorithm, and simulation was carried out to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.