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Improvement of Shipboard Landing Performance of Fixed-wing UAV Using Model Predictive Control

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  • Control Theory and Applications
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Abstract

This paper investigates automatic UAV carrier landing using model predictive control that considers carrier deck motions. With dynamic models of a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV and an aircraft carrier, the proposed guidance and control approach takes the relative geometry between the UAV and the carrier deck into account for safer shipboard landings. Automatic carrier landing is performed sequentially by two types of control systems. A linear quadratic regulator with an integral term is applied up to a few seconds before touchdown followed by a model predictive controller. At this time, optimal control input sequences over a certain time horizon are calculated in real time by predicting the motions of the carrier deck and the UAV. Numerical simulations are performed for a UAV and a carrier with heave motion to verify the feasibility of the proposed approach.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Korea Aerospace Industries, LTD., Sacheon, Gyeongsangnam-do, 52529, Korea

    Soyeon Koo

  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 34134, Republic of Korea

    Seungkeun Kim & Jinyoung Suk

  3. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Institute of Advanced Aerospace Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea

    Youdan Kim

  4. 5th R&D Institute 2nd Directorate at Agency for Defense Development, Daejeon, Korea

    Jongho Shin

Authors
  1. Soyeon Koo
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  2. Seungkeun Kim
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  3. Jinyoung Suk
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  4. Youdan Kim
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  5. Jongho Shin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seungkeun Kim.

Additional information

Recommended by Associate Editor Yingmin Jia under the direction of Editor Myo Taeg Lim. This study was supported by National Research Foundation in Korea (Contract No. NRF- 2015R1C1A1A02036862) and the project “Development of an SMPC Flap Module for Morphing Wings (Contract No. 10066055)” funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of Korea.

Soyeon Koo received her B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in aerospace engineering from Chungnam National University (CNU), Daejeon, Korea, in 2014 and 2016, respectively. She is currently an engineer at Korea Aerospace Industries, LTD. Her research interests include dynamics, control, nonlinear control, and unmanned systems.

Seungkeun Kim received the B.Sc. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea, in 2002, and then acquired the Ph.D. degree from SNU in 2008. He is currently an associate professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Chungnam National University, Korea. Previously he was a research fellow and a lecturer at Cranfield University, United Kingdom, in 2008–2012. His research interests cover nonlinear guidance and control, estimation, sensor and information fusion, fault diagnosis, fault tolerant control, and decision making for unmanned systems.

Jinyoung Suk received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in aerospace engineering from Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea, in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and then he acquired a Ph.D. from SNU in 1998. He is currently a professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Chungnam National University, Korea. Previously he was a senior researcher at Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), in 1998–2001. His research interests cover dynamics, system iden- tification, control, guidance, and estimation, for various types of unmanned systems

Youdan Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea, and a Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University, in 1983, 1985, and 1990, respectively. He joined the faculty of the Seoul National University in 1992. His research interests include control system design for aircraft and spacecraft, reconfigurable flight control system, missile guidance and control.

Jongho Shin received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea, in 2005, and his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University in 2011. He is currently a senior researcher in Agency for Defense Development, Daejeon, Korea. His research interests include adaptive/ robust/optimal control with applications to aerial robots, autonomous ground robots, surface vessel and other mechanical systems.

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Koo, S., Kim, S., Suk, J. et al. Improvement of Shipboard Landing Performance of Fixed-wing UAV Using Model Predictive Control. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 16, 2697–2708 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-017-0690-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-017-0690-1

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