Optimal control of an Aerial Robot

In this paper, the design procedure of a proposed optimal controller for an aerial robot or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is studied to perform a specific manoeuvre. The manoeuvre is defined as speeding on the runway, taking off, cruising, turning back to the airport, landing and braking on the runway. Then, a realistic dynamic model for this vehicle is presented by considering perturbation technique in the two sets of equations. Thereafter appropriate controllers are designed by means of optimal control approach. Then, the two sets of longitudinal and lateral equations are simulated simultaneously and the considered UAV is studied as a 6 DOF system for performing mentioned manoeuvre. In this study, a comprehensive simulation routine has been developed and optimal control approach based on non-linear dynamics model is used to evaluate and estimate performance of designed controller on a real UAV system. Fuel consumption rate and weighted state variable errors are computed for path tracking problem, and the obtained results are compared and discussed. It can be concluded that an increase in the total manoeuvre time, may result in considerable deviation of the followed path and also variations in the weighted state error values.