Abstract
This paper proposes a nonlinear control strategy for a newly-designed coaxial tilt-rotor (CTR) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is a special class of tilt-rotor (TR) UAVs with two pairs of coaxial rotors, two servos, and a rear rotor. The CTRUAV is an underactuated system, and the controller is designed in cascade form. The proposed controller includes two sub-controllers: an inner-loop attitude controller and an outer-loop velocity controller. Each sub-controller is proposed by using a backstepping-like feedback linearization method to control and stabilize the CTRUAV. The developed control strategy can realize the motion control for the CTRUAV. The asymptotic stability of the resulting closed-loop system is analyzed by the Lyapunov method. Finally, simulations and real flight tests are performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control system.
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This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61773090 and 61773086, in part by Liao Ning Revitalization Talents Program under Grant XLYC1907100.
Shengming Li was born in Hunan, China. He received his B.S. degree in automation engineering and his M.S. degree in communication and information system from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning Province, in 2009 and 2012, respectively. He is working toward a Ph.D. degree at School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Dalian University of Technology from 2015. He is currently a senior engineer at School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Dalian University of Technology. His current research interests include intelligent robot and machine learning.
Zongyang Lv received his M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, in 2015. From 2015 to 2016, he joined Huawei Technologies Company Ltd., Shenzhen, China. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree at the School of Control Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology from 2017. His current research interests include nonlinear control theory, fixed-time control theory, and control applications in unmanned aerial vehicles. Lin Feng rec
Lin Feng received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in internal combustion engine, and a Ph.D. degree in mechanical design and theory from the Dalian University of Technology, China, in 1992, 1995, and 2004, respectively. He is currently a Professor and a Doctoral Supervisor with the School of Innovation Experiment, Dalian University of Technology. His research interests include intelligent image processing, robotics, data mining, and embedded systems.
Yuhu Wu received his Ph.D. degree in mathematics from the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2012. Since 2012, he has held an Assistant Professor position with the Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin. He held a Postdoctoral Research position with Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, from 2012 to 2015. In 2015, he joined the School of Control Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, where he is currently a Full Professor. His research interests are related to optimization, and nonlinear control theory and applications of control to Boolean networks, automotive powertrain systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Yingshun Li received her Ph.D. degree in pattern recognition and intelligent system from the Northeast University, Shenyang, China, in 2006. She held a Professor position with the Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology, Beijing, from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, she joined the School of Control Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, where she is currently a professor. Her research interests are related to the artificial intelligence, the fault diagnosis and health management of military equipment.
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Li, S., Lv, Z., Feng, L. et al. Nonlinear Cascade Control for a New Coaxial Tilt-rotor UAV. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 20, 2948–2958 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-021-0105-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-021-0105-1