Poziv na predavanje: "Modeling and Navigation Controller Design of a Circulation Control Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle"

Sažetak

Circulation Control (CC) is an effective technique that allows for increasing lift and improving aerodynamic efficiency of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). CC-based UAVs exhibit enhanced aerodynamic performance in terms of reduced runway for take-off and landing, increased effective payload capability and delayed stall. However, CC introduces changes of the aerodynamic coefficients that are difficult to determine using strict mathematical formulas. This creates a specific type of model uncertainty in the CC-based fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UC²AV), which must be addressed and accommodated for; this is tackled using µ-analysis. A detailed systematic approach to parameter identification of the UC²AV is first required to derive an accurate model, before designing a navigation controller. Then, a novel, robust nonlinear controller for the longitudinal / lateral flight dynamics of a UC²AV is presented, which operates in cascaded fashion and considers changing mass. The controller consists of a dynamic inversion inner-loop and a µ-synthesis outer-loop controller. Results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed control scheme and the ability of the UC²AV to adapt to challenging CC-on-demand scenarios. The proposed controller design can be generalized and applied to a family of nonlinear systems with unstructured uncertainties and time-varying parameters, going beyond addressing uncertainty challenges regarding the aircraft’s aerodynamic coefficients.

O predavaču

Dr. Kimon P. Valavanis joined the University of Denver in September 2008 as Professor and Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is currently John Evans Professor, Director of Research and Innovation at the D. F. Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science, and Founding Director of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute. He is also Guest Professor in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and had a visiting resercher and teaching position at the Politecnico di Torino under the doctoral school programme.

During his 30+ years of Academic career, Valavanis has graduated 38 PhD students and more than 100 M.Sc. students. He has attracted and has helped attracting close to $50M in research funds from Federal and State agencies, industry and the private sector. While in Europe, he was funded by the Greek Secretariat of Research and Technology, the European Union, industry, and from the Croatian Ministry of Science and Technology (joint projects).

Valavanis' research interests focus on the areas of Unmanned Systems, Distributed Intelligence Systems, Robotics and Automation. He has published more than 400 book chapters, technical journal, referred conference papers, invited papers and technical reports. He has authored, co-authored and edited 19 books, two of which have been translated in Chinese. He has organized international conferences, worldwide. He was Editor-in-chief (EIC) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine for ten years; EIC of the IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Newsletter for three years; EIC of the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems since 2006. He serves as co-chair/chair of the Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Technical Committee since 2008. He serves since 1998 as Vice President of the Mediterranean Control Association.

Dr. Valavanis was a Distinguished Speaker in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society; Senior Member of IEEE; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Fellow of the U.K. Institute of Measurement and Control; Fulbright Scholar (Senior Lecturing & Research Award), and, Technical Expert of the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO). In May of 2019, during the 25-year anniversary meeting for the Robotics and Automation Magazine, he was awarded by IEEE and the Robotics and Automation Society for his 10 years of service as Editor-in-Chief.