Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have attracted a recurring interest in recent years. UAVs have been used to tackle critical tasks in a more efficient and safer way than ground robots in many situations. Since UAVs are often operating in complex environments such as forest, mountain, urban area, etc....

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Main Author: Zhang, Songyuan
Other Authors: Xie Lihua
Format: Theses and Dissertations
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70563
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-705632023-07-04T17:26:11Z Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities Zhang, Songyuan Xie Lihua School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have attracted a recurring interest in recent years. UAVs have been used to tackle critical tasks in a more efficient and safer way than ground robots in many situations. Since UAVs are often operating in complex environments such as forest, mountain, urban area, etc., in order to protect surrounding properties and people, a model based UAV control with advanced safety system is studied. A particular type of quadcopter is developed based on the characteristics of the platform and motors to increase flight stability and maneuverability. Kinematics and dynamics equations of the quadcopter are derived and system identification methods are applied to obtain the parameters of the model. Besides, a proportional-derivative (PD) controller is designed first. Further, to eliminate the steady state error and enhance the tracking performance, the controller is further improved to incorporate an integral control. To ensure that UAV stays inside the operating area and protect surroundings, an advanced safety system featured with dynamic soft geofence, fixed hard geofence, and real-time monitoring at the ground control station is developed. Dynamic soft geofence is used to predict the distance to the hard geofence boundary after a fixed time duration based on current location and the dynamics of the UAV. A model predictive control (MPC) approach is applied to design a controller for braking without breaching the hard geofence boundary. A simulator is created to simulate and visualize the quadcopter control mechanisms as well as path flying performance with the implemented geofence system. Simulations and experiments are carried out to verify the performance of the designed control and safety system. Doctor of Philosophy (EEE) 2017-04-27T09:27:29Z 2017-04-27T09:27:29Z 2017 Thesis Zhang, S. (2017). Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70563 10.32657/10356/70563 en 124 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
Zhang, Songyuan
Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
description Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have attracted a recurring interest in recent years. UAVs have been used to tackle critical tasks in a more efficient and safer way than ground robots in many situations. Since UAVs are often operating in complex environments such as forest, mountain, urban area, etc., in order to protect surrounding properties and people, a model based UAV control with advanced safety system is studied. A particular type of quadcopter is developed based on the characteristics of the platform and motors to increase flight stability and maneuverability. Kinematics and dynamics equations of the quadcopter are derived and system identification methods are applied to obtain the parameters of the model. Besides, a proportional-derivative (PD) controller is designed first. Further, to eliminate the steady state error and enhance the tracking performance, the controller is further improved to incorporate an integral control. To ensure that UAV stays inside the operating area and protect surroundings, an advanced safety system featured with dynamic soft geofence, fixed hard geofence, and real-time monitoring at the ground control station is developed. Dynamic soft geofence is used to predict the distance to the hard geofence boundary after a fixed time duration based on current location and the dynamics of the UAV. A model predictive control (MPC) approach is applied to design a controller for braking without breaching the hard geofence boundary. A simulator is created to simulate and visualize the quadcopter control mechanisms as well as path flying performance with the implemented geofence system. Simulations and experiments are carried out to verify the performance of the designed control and safety system.
author2 Xie Lihua
author_facet Xie Lihua
Zhang, Songyuan
format Theses and Dissertations
author Zhang, Songyuan
author_sort Zhang, Songyuan
title Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
title_short Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
title_full Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
title_fullStr Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
title_full_unstemmed Development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
title_sort development of unmanned aerial vehicles with advanced safety capabilities
publishDate 2017
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70563
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