Micro air vehicle control design : a comparison of classical and dynamic inversion techniques

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are envisioned as autonomous aerial robots capable of flying into an urban environment to perform reconnaissance, targeting, and remote sensing. These vehicles are significantly smaller than current aircraft, with maximum dimensions of 15 centimeters, presenting challenges to vehicle packaging and vehicle control. This thesis describes the design and analysis of control algorithms for a rotorcraft MAV using classical and dynamic inversion approaches. Classical control algorithms were developed based on linear, single input/single output analysis and were successfully implemented in hover, climb, and forward flight simulations. A dynamic inversion routine was then applied to the inner-loop control, providing improved inner-loop performance compared to the classical approach for nominal flight conditions. Finally, the two approaches were compared on the basis of their performance, disturbance rejection, and robustness. Dynamic inversion generally outperformed the classical approach for non-linear, state-coupled flight conditions, but suffered when subject to unmodeled dynamics and modeling errors.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Brown, Patrick D. (Patrick Daniel), 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Marc W. McConley.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8791

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8791