06.2 - Flight Dynamics and Control (UAV related)
ADAPTIVE CONTROL AND MISSION PLANNER DESIGN FOR UAV OPERATIONS WITH BATTERY MANAGEMENT
A. Boldrini¹, G. Gozzini¹, D. Invernizzi¹; ¹Politecnico di Milano, Italy
The primary objective of this work is to leverage adaptive control techniques to effectively counteract the reduction in thrust caused by the battery discharge in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) enhancing their reliability and autonomy while extending their operational range and mission success rates. In addition to this, the w work aims to devise a mission planner capable of ensuring the safe execution of trajectory tracking tasks, such as those related to monitoring/surveillance missions. One of the main contribution of the work is the augmentation of classic baseline controllers with adaptive control mechanisms to dynamically adjust and optimize the control inputs of the UAV as the battery discharges, continuously monitoring and adapting to the changing thrust capabilities, aiming to maintain the UAV's performance within acceptable parameters throughout the mission. Moreover, regarding the autonomous mission planner, the thrust loss estimate, which can be considered as a key parameter of the battery's status, becomes a crucial parameter also for the decision-making algorithms that assess when it is prudent to terminate the mission, ensuring the UAV's safe return to the charging station without risking a depleted battery during flight. Therefore, the mission management system is completed by breaking down the overall mission into different modes and defining a hybrid automaton that enables the transition from one mode to another and a control input that allows the UAV to perform the task autonomously, including when it necessitates to return to the charging base. Lastly, this control scheme and the mission management real-world effectiveness is assessed through a series of tests under different simulation conditions.