Flight control system design for an over actuated UAV against actuator failures

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Havacılık ve Uzay Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: SİNEM IŞIK

Danışman: OZAN TEKİNALP

Özet:

This thesis describes the automatic flight control systems designed for a conventional and an over actuated unmanned air vehicle (UAV). A nonlinear simulation model including the flight mechanics equations together with the interpolated nonlinear aerodynamics, environmental effects, mass-inertia properties, thrust calculations and actuator dynamics is created; trim and linearization codes are developed. Automatic flight control system of the conventional UAV is designed by using both classical and robust control methods. Performances of the designs for full autonomous flight are tested through nonlinear simulations for different maneuvers in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances in the aircraft model. The fault tolerant control of an over actuated UAV is the main concern of the thesis. The flight control system is designed using classical control techniques. Two static control allocation methods are examined: Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse and blended inverse. For this purpose, an aircraft with three sets of ailerons is employed. It is shown that with redundant control surfaces, fault tolerant control is possible. Although both of the static control allocation methods are found to be quite successful to realize the maneuvers, the new blended inverse algorithm is shown to be more effective in controlling the aircraft when some of the control surfaces are lost. It is also demonstrated that, with redundant control surfaces it is possible to recover the aircraft during a maneuver even some of the control surfaces are damaged or got stuck at a particular deflection.