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Global robust tracking control of non-affine nonlinear systems with application to yaw control of UAV helicopter

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Abstract

In this paper, a novel robust nonlinear tracking control scheme is proposed for the yaw channel of an unmanned-aerial-vehicle helicopter that is non-affine in the control input. By a novel dynamic modeling technique, the non-affine nonlinear systems are approximated to facilitate the desired control design. In the controller design procedure, the terminal sliding model control method is introduced to deal with the unknown uncertainties/disturbances. Moreover, filter and disturbance estimator are combined to further reduce the chattering. A systematic procedure is developed and related theoretical and practical issues are discussed. The proposed nonlinear tracking control scheme can guarantee the asymptotic output tracking of the closed-loop control systems in spite of unknown uncertainties/disturbances. Finally, the simulation results on the dynamic model of a real helicopter-on-arm are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed new control techniques.

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Correspondence to Bin Jiang.

Additional information

Recommended by Editorial Board member Nam H. Jo under the direction of Editor Myotaeg Lim.

This work was partially supported by the National Key Basic Research Program (No.2012CB215202), the 111 Project (B12018), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61273171, 61034005, 61174058), the National Aerospace Science Foundation of China (2012ZA52017), PAPD, Funding of Jiangsu Innovation Program for Graduate Education (CXZZ11-0213), funding for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in NUAA (BCXJ12-04), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and Engineering and Physics Sciences Research Council, UK (EP/F029195).

De-Zhi Xu received his M.Sc. degree in Automatic Control from Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, China in 2010 and Ph.D. candidate at the College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His research interests include fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, datadriven control.

Bin Jiang was born in Jiangxi, China, in 1966. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Automatic Control from Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, in 1995. He had ever been postdoctoral fellow, research fellow and visiting professor in Singapore, France, USA and Canada, respectively. Now he is a Chair Professor of Cheung Kong Scholar Program in Ministry of Education and Dean of College of Automation Engineering in Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. He currently serves as Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member for a number of journals such as IEEE Trans. On Control Systems Technology; Int. J. of Control, Automation and Systems; Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems; Int. J. of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science; Acta Automatica Sinica; Journal of Astronautics. He is a senior member of IEEE, Chair of Control Systems Chapter in IEEE Nanjing Section, a member of IFAC Technical Committee on Fault Detection, Supervision, and Safety of Technical Processes. His research interests include fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control and their applications.

Peng Shi received his BSc degree in Mathematics from Harbin Institute of Technology, China; an ME degree in Systems Engineering from Harbin Engineering University, China; a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Newcastle, Australia; the Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from the University of South Australia; and the DSc degree from the University of Glamorgan, UK. Dr. Shi was a lecturer at Heilongjiang University, China, a postdoctorate and lecturer at the University of South Australia; a senior scientist in the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Australia; and a professor at the University of Glamorgan (now The University of South Wales), UK. Now, he is a professor at The University of Adelaide, and Victoria University, Australia. Dr Shi’s research interests include system and control theory, computational and intelligent systems, and operational research. Dr. Shi is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and a Senior Member of IEEE. He has been in the editorial board of a number of journals, including Automatica, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control; IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems; IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics-Part B: Cybernetics; and IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I.

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Xu, DZ., Jiang, B. & Shi, P. Global robust tracking control of non-affine nonlinear systems with application to yaw control of UAV helicopter. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 11, 957–965 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-012-0335-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-012-0335-3

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