Nonminimum phase output tracking has been addressed for a fixed-wing micro aerial vehicle. Nonminimum phase characteristics in an aircraft result from the fact that the process of generating upward vertical motion produces an initial downward force, causing the aircraft to lose altitude momentarily, and vice versa. This phenomenon leads to unstable internal dynamics in the plant model. A dynamic sliding-surface-based sliding mode control is chosen to stabilize the internal dynamics and to provide asymptotic output tracking error convergence to zero with desired eigenvalue placement. The control is designed in such a way that the output of the plant model should track a nonlinear time-varying reference trajectory generated at every time instant with a finite number of nonzero time derivatives. Design of second-order sliding-mode-based super twisting controller which ensures finite-time stability of the internal dynamics is proposed in this work. The proposed control methodology is applied in the design of an autolanding controller for a micro aerial vehicle with nonminimum phase behavior. MATLAB-based simulation results and discussions are presented to evaluate the performance of the controller and robustness of the sliding mode with respect to matched and unmatched disturbances. The proposed control algorithm has been successfully implemented in hardware-in-the-loop simulation and results are given.

This paper presents the implementation of a modified state observer-based adaptive dynamic inverse controller for the Black Kite micro aerial vehicle. The pitch and velocity adaptations are computed by the modified state observer in the presence of turbulence to simulate atmospheric conditions. This state observer uses the estimation error to generate the adaptations and, hence, is more robust than model reference adaptive controllers which use modeling or tracking error. In prior work, a traditional proportional-integral-derivative control law was tested in simulation for its adaptive capability in the longitudinal dynamics of the Black Kite micro aerial vehicle. This controller tracks the altitude and velocity commands during normal conditions, but fails in the presence of both parameter uncertainties and system failures. The modified state observer-based adaptations, along with the proportional-integral-derivative controller enables tracking despite these conditions. To simulate flight of the micro aerial vehicle with turbulence, a Dryden turbulence model is included. The turbulence levels used are based on the absolute load factor experienced by the aircraft. The length scale was set to 2.0 meters with a turbulence intensity of 5.0 m/s that generates a moderate turbulence. Simulation results for various flight conditions show that the modified state observer-based adaptations were able to adapt to the uncertainties and the controller tracks the commanded altitude and velocity. The summary of results for all of the simulated test cases and the response plots of various states for typical flight cases are presented.

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