CONTROL OF A FIXED-WING AUTONOMOUS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE

Abstract

Design and implementation of a control law for a fixed-wing autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) using Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach is described in this report. Autonomous UAVs are being used in a wide-range of applications with challenging objectives such as mapping of large areas, Surveillance, imaging, combat roles (reconnaissance, lasing, bombing, suicidal missions), etc. Fixed-wing aerial vehicles are preferred over rotor drones, due to its inherent energy efficiency in medium to long-range missions and the ability to carry heavier payloads. Therefore, there is a growing emphasis on designing of a control law for a fixed-wing autonomous UAV that can navigate through constrained environment and maneuver to a mission target. As the flight dynamics of a fixed-wing UAV is non-linear, different non-linear controllers have been used to achieve this objective. In this repot an 3DOF aircraft model inspired by the paper mentioned in [1] considered and the guidance law is being designed using MPC. As MPC provides a predictive approach for path following and its constraints handling capability is utilized to simulate practical limits of the aircraft. Combination MPC with Control Barrier Functions (CBF) is used in designing collision avoidance of the aerial vehicle with a static obstacle. Utilization of this design for loitering over a fixed target and a moving target were achieved. Finally, the report demonstrates the employability of a loitering UAV to either neutralize (destroy by hard-kill) a target or abort loitering. All the mentioned applications have been extensively simulated on MATLAB-Simulink software and the results of the simulation is presented in the report.