Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, the design of a formation flight controller is investigated. Each vehicle in the formation is controlled by designing two separate control loops. The formation flight controller placed in the outer loop employs behavior-based control as a distributed control strategy to steer the vehicle by producing acceleration commands and the control system placed in the inner loop is to convert these commands to the actuator commands. Leader following architecture is applied to define the structure for the formation flight. To study the pragmatic issues of the proposed formation flight controller, it is implemented into multiple micro air vehicles which are modeled by a... 

The development and the implementation of a new guidance law are addressed for a six dimensional trajectory tracking problem, three dimensions for position tracking and three dimensions for velocity tracking, of a micro air vehicle. To generate the desired trajectory a virtual leader is defined which is moved in space. In the guidance law, position and velocity feedbacks are used by fuzzy controllers to generate two acceleration commands. Then, a fuzzy coordinator is applied to coordinate the acceleration commands. Nonlinear six-degree-of-freedom equations of motion are used to model the vehicle dynamics. Also, a bank-to-turn acceleration autopilot for vehicle is considered to follow the... 

In this research, Model Aided Inertial Navigation (MAIN) is used during the automatic landing of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A new MAIN algorithm is proposed which is fast and accurate enough to be used in this phase. In this algorithm, the six Degree of Freedom (6DoF) flight simulation of the UAV is integrated with the Inertial Navigation System (INS) such that the 6DoF model acts as an aiding system for the INS. In the last parts of the landing phase, when the UAV flies in proximity of the ground surface, the proposed integrated navigation system can estimate the altitude of UAV utilizing the “ground effect” phenomenon. Therefore, the method does not have the drawbacks of active... 

In this paper, a new approach based on block-oriented nonlinear models for the modeling and identification of aircraft nonlinear dynamics is proposed. Some of the block-oriented nonlinear models are regarded as flexible structures, which are suitable for the identification of widely applicable dynamic systems. These models are able to approximate a wide range of system dynamics. In general, aircraft flight dynamics is considered as a nonlinear and coupled system whose dynamics - in addition to pilot control inputs - depend on the flight conditions such as Mach number and altitude, which cause the aircraft dynamics to have various operational points. In this study, three types of... 

The use of Model Aided Inertial Navigation (MAIN) during the landing of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is investigated. A new MAIN algorithm is proposed, which is fast and accurate enough to be used in automatic landing. In this algorithm, the six Degree of Freedom (6DoF) model of the UAV is tightly coupled with the inertial navigation system; thus, the 6DoF model acts as an aiding system for the INS and vice versa. In the last parts of the landing phase in proximity of Earth, the proposed algorithm also estimates and removes the Ground Effect (GE) uncertainties and provides the height controller with a realistic model. An adaptive controller based on a parametric state-space model is used... 

In this paper, chaos in spatial attitude dynamics of a triaxial rigid satellite in an elliptic orbit is investigated analytically and numerically. The goal in the analytical part is to prove the existence of chaos and then to find a relation for the width of chaotic layers (i.e. the initial values needed to have a chaotic attitude motion) based on the parameters of the system. The numerical part is aimed at validating the analytical method using the Poincaré maps and the maximum value of the Lyapunov exponents. The rotational–translational Hamiltonian of the system is first derived. This Hamiltonian has six degrees of freedom. Choosing a proper set of coordinates and given the fact that the... 

In this paper, chaos in spatial attitude dynamics of a triaxial rigid satellite in an elliptic orbit is investigated analytically and numerically. The goal in the analytical part is to prove the existence of chaos and then to find a relation for the width of chaotic layers (i.e. the initial values needed to have a chaotic attitude motion) based on the parameters of the system. The numerical part is aimed at validating the analytical method using the Poincaré maps and the maximum value of the Lyapunov exponents. The rotational–translational Hamiltonian of the system is first derived. This Hamiltonian has six degrees of freedom. Choosing a proper set of coordinates and given the fact that the... 

Airships are inherently sensitive to random atmospheric disturbances that could potentially make their data gathering and observation missions a formidable task. In this context robust closed loop feedback controllers are important. The present study is therefore focused on optimal feedback controller design of an indigenous domestically designed airship (DA) for added robustness against atmospheric disturbances. While the general airship six degrees of freedom (6DoF) governing equations of motion are mathematically nonlinear, one often needs to resort to local linearization methods to benefit from proven linear closed loop controller (CLC) design approaches. In this sense an optimal linear... 

Roll control of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is a significant issue in the current field of research for many researchers in the subject of AUV control system designation. Especially at higher speeds, the roll angle generated by a single rotating propeller or other external disturbances can considerably influence the whole dynamics and therefore the operation of the vehicle. In this paper, the utilisation of a system of contra-rotating-propellers (CRP) to enhance the roll dynamics of an AUV is evaluated by developing a six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) dynamics and control systems’ simulator. The results show that: 1. The single propeller system can cause roll angle deflections... 

The Analytic 6 D.O.F. dynamic model of a helicopter is developed for 3D computer generated imagery simulator. Analytic expressions for the forces and moments on the various helicopter components are derived. By using the forces and moments equilibrium, helicopter trim point is determined using Newton's method of solving the nonlinear set of trim equations. The equations of motion for the fuselage six degree of freedom are assembled by applying Newton's law of motion relating the applied forces and moments to the resulting translational and rotational acceleration. Visual C++ programming software, utilized as a platform will interact to MATLAB Aircraft Instrument ActiveX and 3DSTATE for... 

Airships are inherently sensitive to random atmospheric disturbances that could potentially make their data gathering and observation missions a formidable task. In this context robust closed loop feedback controllers are important. The present study is therefore focused on optimal feedback controller design of an indigenous domestically designed airship (DA) for added robustness against atmospheric disturbances. While the general airship six degrees of freedom (6DoF) governing equations of motion are mathematically nonlinear, one often needs to resort to local linearization methods to benefit from proven linear closed loop controller (CLC) design approaches. In this sense an optimal linear... 

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe optical flow-based navigation of a very light fixed-wing aircraft in flight between obstacles. Design/methodology/approach - The optical flow information of two cameras mounted on the aircraft is used to detect the obstacle. It is assumed that the image processing has been completed and the optical flow vectors have been obtained beforehand. The optical flow is used to detect the obstacles and make a rapid turn manoeuvre for the aircraft. Findings - It is shown that using the optical flow feedback by itself is unable to give a rapid turn to the aircraft and its rate should be employed into the control law. Six degree-of-freedom flight... 

This study describes an adaptive sliding mode technique for attitude and position control of a rigid body insect-like flapping wing model in the presence of uncertainties. For this purpose, a six-degrees-of-freedom nonlinear and time-varying dynamic model of a typical hummingbird is considered for simulation studies. Based on the quasi-steady assumptions, three major aerodynamic loads including delayed stall, rotational lift and added mass are presented and analyzed, respectively. Using the averaging theory, a time-varying system is then transformed into the time-invariant system to design the adaptive controller. The controller is designed so that the closed-loop system will follow any... 

In this study, the distributed six degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) coordinated control of spacecraft formation flying in low earth orbit (LEO) has been investigated. For this purpose, an accurate coupled translational and attitude relative dynamics model of the spacecraft with respect to the reference orbit (virtual leader) is presented by considering the most effective perturbation acceleration forces on LEO satellites, i.e. the second zonal harmonic and the atmospheric drag. Subsequently, the 6-DOF coordinated control of spacecraft in formation is studied. During the mission, the spacecraft communicate with each other through a switching network topology in which the weights of its graph... 

The problem of controlling an all-thruster spacecraft in the coupled translational-rotational motion in presence of actuators fault and/or failure is investigated in this paper. the nonlinear model predictive control approach is used because of its ability to predict the future behavior of the system. The fault/failure of the thrusters changes the mapping between the commanded forces to the thrusters and actual force/torque generated by the thruster system. Thus, the basic six degree-of-freedom kinetic equations are separated from this mapping and a set of neural networks are trained off-line to learn the kinetic equations. Then, two neural networks are attached to these trained networks in... 

Prediction of the thermo-mechanical behavior of machine-tool spindles is essential in the reliable operation of high speed machine tools. In particular, the performance of these high speed spindles is dependent on their thermal behavior. The main source of heat generation in the spindle is the friction torque in angular contact ball bearings. This paper presents an effort to develop a comprehensive model of high speed spindles that includes viable models for the mechanical and thermal behavior of its major components, i.e., bearings, shaft and housing. Spindle housing and shaft are treated as six-degree-of-freedom Timoshenko beam elements. Bearings are modeled as two-node elements with five... 

Paraplegic users of mechanical walking orthoses, e.g. advanced reciprocating gait orthosis (ARGO), often face high energy expenditure and extreme upper body loading during locomotion. We studied the effect of kinematical pattern on the mechanical performance of paraplegic locomotion, in search for an improved gait pattern that leads to lower muscular efforts. A three-dimensional, four segment, six-degrees-of-freedom skeletal model of the advanced reciprocating gait orthosis-assisted paraplegic locomotion was developed based on the data acquired from an experimental study on a single subject. The effect of muscles was represented by ideal joint torque generators. A response surface analysis...