scholarly journals Distributed Leader-Follower Flight Control for Large-Scale Clusters of Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

IEEE Access ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 32790-32799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongnan Jia ◽  
Qing Li ◽  
Shanqiao Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Aerial Vehicles

scholarly journals Virtual Electric Dipole Field Applied to Autonomous Formation Flight Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4540
Author(s):  
Leszek Ambroziak ◽  
Maciej Ciężkowski
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Electric Dipole ◽  
Potential Field ◽  
Control Algorithm ◽  
Formation Flight ◽  
Potential Fields ◽  
Dipole Potential ◽  
Aerial Vehicles

The following paper presents a method for the use of a virtual electric dipole potential field to control a leader-follower formation of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The proposed control algorithm uses a virtual electric dipole potential field to determine the desired heading for a UAV follower. This method’s greatest advantage is the ability to rapidly change the potential field function depending on the position of the independent leader. Another advantage is that it ensures formation flight safety regardless of the positions of the initial leader or follower. Moreover, it is also possible to generate additional potential fields which guarantee obstacle and vehicle collision avoidance. The considered control system can easily be adapted to vehicles with different dynamics without the need to retune heading control channel gains and parameters. The paper closely describes and presents in detail the synthesis of the control algorithm based on vector fields obtained using scalar virtual electric dipole potential fields. The proposed control system was tested and its operation was verified through simulations. Generated potential fields as well as leader-follower flight parameters have been presented and thoroughly discussed within the paper. The obtained research results validate the effectiveness of this formation flight control method as well as prove that the described algorithm improves flight formation organization and helps ensure collision-free conditions.

scholarly journals Computer Vision in Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles—A Systematic Mapping Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (15) ◽  
pp. 3196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidia María Belmonte ◽  
Rafael Morales ◽  
Antonio Fernández-Caballero
Keyword(s):  
Computer Vision ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Systematic Mapping Study ◽  
General View ◽  
Mapping Study ◽  
Vision Systems ◽  
Systematic Mapping ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Assistant Robots

Personal assistant robots provide novel technological solutions in order to monitor people’s activities, helping them in their daily lives. In this sense, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can also bring forward a present and future model of assistant robots. To develop aerial assistants, it is necessary to address the issue of autonomous navigation based on visual cues. Indeed, navigating autonomously is still a challenge in which computer vision technologies tend to play an outstanding role. Thus, the design of vision systems and algorithms for autonomous UAV navigation and flight control has become a prominent research field in the last few years. In this paper, a systematic mapping study is carried out in order to obtain a general view of this subject. The study provides an extensive analysis of papers that address computer vision as regards the following autonomous UAV vision-based tasks: (1) navigation, (2) control, (3) tracking or guidance, and (4) sense-and-avoid. The works considered in the mapping study—a total of 144 papers from an initial set of 2081—have been classified under the four categories above. Moreover, type of UAV, features of the vision systems employed and validation procedures are also analyzed. The results obtained make it possible to draw conclusions about the research focuses, which UAV platforms are mostly used in each category, which vision systems are most frequently employed, and which types of tests are usually performed to validate the proposed solutions. The results of this systematic mapping study demonstrate the scientific community’s growing interest in the development of vision-based solutions for autonomous UAVs. Moreover, they will make it possible to study the feasibility and characteristics of future UAVs taking the role of personal assistants.

scholarly journals Performance analysis of nonlinear observers applied to the fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles flight under decoupled-reduced model

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo P Parada ◽  
A Tadeo Espinoza ◽  
Alejandro E Dzul ◽  
Francisco G Salas
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Sliding Mode ◽  
Reduced Model ◽  
Control Law ◽  
Extended State ◽  
Nonlinear Observers ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Nonlinear Extended State Observer

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of two nonlinear observers: nonlinear extended state observer and sliding mode observer for estimating the pitch, yaw and roll angles and angular rates of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles system under a decoupled-reduced model in real flight experiments. A backstepping control law is designed for control in a decentralized way for altitude, yaw and roll of the airplane. This scheme allows us to test experimentally the feasibility of using the online estimated data from the observers in flight control, which is useful for increasing the robustness of the control and the safety of flight. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the performance of both nonlinear observers is conducted.

scholarly journals Automatic Reverse Engineering of Private Flight Control Protocols of UAVs

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Ji ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Chaojing Tang ◽  
Ruilin Li
Keyword(s):  
Reverse Engineering ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Polynomial Matrix ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Binary Format ◽  
Control Protocols ◽  
Protocol Reverse Engineering ◽  
Binary Network ◽  
Accumulated Error

The increasing use of civil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has the potential to threaten public safety and privacy. Therefore, airspace administrators urgently need an effective method to regulate UAVs. Understanding the meaning and format of UAV flight control commands by automatic protocol reverse-engineering techniques is highly beneficial to UAV regulation. To improve our understanding of the meaning and format of UAV flight control commands, this paper proposes a method to automatically analyze the private flight control protocols of UAVs. First, we classify flight control commands collected from a binary network trace into clusters; then, we analyze the meaning of flight control commands by the accumulated error of each cluster; next, we extract the binary format of commands and infer field semantics in these commands; and finally, we infer the location of the check field in command and the generator polynomial matrix. The proposed approach is validated via experiments on a widely used consumer UAV.

Ergonomic and General Ground Control Station Design for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

2013 ◽  
Vol 390 ◽  
pp. 388-392
Author(s):  
Ai Zhi Liu ◽  
Bao An Li ◽  
An Min Xi
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Ground Control ◽  
Hardware Platform ◽  
Gigabit Ethernet ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Control Console ◽  
General Ground ◽  
Ground Control Station ◽  
Standard Interface

In the view of the existing design for Ground Control Station(GCS) of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV) lacking of generality and ergonomics, a kind of ergonomic and general GCS is designed; the architecture of GCS system, which is general open and distributed, is constructed based on Gigabit Ethernet; a standard and general hardware platform is designed; software follows Standard Interface of STANAG 4586; the Shelter and Flight Control Console(FCC) are designed based on Ergonomics; that is an exploration for the design of GCS.

scholarly journals Methodological Ambiguity and Inconsistency Constrain Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as A Silver Bullet for Monitoring Ecological Restoration

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Buters ◽  
Philip W. Bateman ◽  
Todd Robinson ◽  
David Belton ◽  
Kingsley W. Dixon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Ecological Restoration ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ecological Monitoring ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
The Future ◽  
Thermal Cameras

The last decade has seen an exponential increase in the application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to ecological monitoring research, though with little standardisation or comparability in methodological approaches and research aims. We reviewed the international peer-reviewed literature in order to explore the potential limitations on the feasibility of UAV-use in the monitoring of ecological restoration, and examined how they might be mitigated to maximise the quality, reliability and comparability of UAV-generated data. We found little evidence of translational research applying UAV-based approaches to ecological restoration, with less than 7% of 2133 published UAV monitoring studies centred around ecological restoration. Of the 48 studies, > 65% had been published in the three years preceding this study. Where studies utilised UAVs for rehabilitation or restoration applications, there was a strong propensity for single-sensor monitoring using commercially available RPAs fitted with the modest-resolution RGB sensors available. There was a strong positive correlation between the use of complex and expensive sensors (e.g., LiDAR, thermal cameras, hyperspectral sensors) and the complexity of chosen image classification techniques (e.g., machine learning), suggesting that cost remains a primary constraint to the wide application of multiple or complex sensors in UAV-based research. We propose that if UAV-acquired data are to represent the future of ecological monitoring, research requires a) consistency in the proven application of different platforms and sensors to the monitoring of target landforms, organisms and ecosystems, underpinned by clearly articulated monitoring goals and outcomes; b) optimization of data analysis techniques and the manner in which data are reported, undertaken in cross-disciplinary partnership with fields such as bioinformatics and machine learning; and c) the development of sound, reasonable and multi-laterally homogenous regulatory and policy framework supporting the application of UAVs to the large-scale and potentially trans-disciplinary ecological applications of the future.

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