Adaptive control for takeoff, hovering, and landing of a robotic fly

Abstract

Abstract-Challenges for controlled flight of a robotic insect are due to the inherent instability of the system, complex fluid-structure interactions, and the general lack of a complete system model. In this paper, we propose theoretical models of the system based on the limited information available from previous work and a comprehensive adaptive flight controller that is capable of coping with uncertainties in the system. We have demonstrated that the proposed methods enable the robot to achieve sustained hovering flights with relatively small errors compared to a similar but non-adaptive approach. Furthermore, vertical takeoff and landing flights are also shown to illustrate the fidelity of the flight controller.

A Survey of Small-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Recent Advances and Future Development Trends

“…Flight control for nano-size flapping-wing robot is solely pursued by researchers at Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory. Proportional control [28], adaptive control [19], and model-free control techniques [69] have been recently applied to their RoboBee platform to achieve fundamental autonomous flight in second level. It should be noted that to capture the instant flight motion, several markers are attached to the rear side of the RoboBee, which somehow changes the vehicle's dynamics, particularly in terms of inherent stability.…”

Getting Started with PEAs-Based Flapping-Wing Mechanisms for Micro Aerial Systems

“…Within another work, a 60 mg micro air vehicle using bimorph piezoelectric actuators was presented in [58]. The device consist of four mechanical components: the airframe that supplies a solid ground to the actuator and transmission; the actuator that provides motion; the transmission that amplifies the actuator motion from a translational to a rotational input, and finally the airfoils that must remain rigid to hold shape under large aerodynamic loads [59].…”

“…In order to achieve a sustained flight, an adaptive controller that consists in three different controllers for attitude, altitude and lateral control was implemented. The purpose of the attitude controller is to align the robot so it can maneuver in the desired direction, the lateral controller estimates the desired orientation to let the robot move to a specific position and the altitude controller computes the suitable thrust force to maintain the robot at the desired height [58]. This system has an external power supply and is able to perform successful hovering, takeoff and landing flights with these configurations with minimal error in the position accuracy.…”

Single-loop control and trajectory following of a flapping-wing microrobot

“…The 80mg Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) shown in figure 1 is a result of the culmination of research in meso-scale actuation and manufacturing technology [7], [8]. The flappingwing robot is able to generate body torques and sufficient lift force [9] satisfying the key requirements for stable flight with the aid of an active flight controller [6].In an effort to improve the flight performance demonstrated in [6], the lack of comprehensive knowledge of the system and variation caused by imperfect fabrication motivated the development of a suite of adaptive flight controller capable of coping with model uncertainties [10]. This brought about marked improvement in flight performance as evidenced by a reduction in position errors, particularly for hovering flights.…”