CMMI-EPSRC: Enhanced Control Methods for Aerial and Space Vehicles Equipped with Limited Force Actuators

这项研究由NSF工程局-UKRI工程和物理科学研究理事会机会领导机构(ENG-EPSRC)资助，NSF 20-510。这笔赠款将资助能够改进无人机、导弹、火箭和行星着陆器等空中和空间飞行器设计的研究，同时确保期望的飞行性能，从而促进科学进步和保障国防。航空和太空飞行器用来控制飞行轨迹的螺旋桨和推进器所能产生的力量有限。如果飞行器的飞行控制系统要求的力量超过这样的限制，结果可能是不理想的飞行性能，阻碍任务。为了避免这种情况，工程师们目前开发了过大的推进器，但代价是增加了车辆的重量和成本。相比之下，该项目开发的控制方法允许飞行器在设计时使用较小尺寸的执行器，同时防止不稳定的飞行行为。应用包括火星着陆器和升空飞行器，它们需要重量轻，以降低生产成本和能源消耗，但需要飞行控制系统来补偿不可预测的环境作用力，否则这些作用力会阻止飞行器遵循预期的轨迹。综合研究、教学和外展活动将通过与促进工程学和其他STEM系之间多学科合作的大学研究所和外部中心的联系，以及通过与服务于目前代表性不足的人口的学术组织的合作来进行。由美国和联合王国的研究人员联合举办的讲习班和对研究生的跨境指导将带来产生更广泛影响的独特机会。与工业和联邦研究机构的合作将允许知识转移和可能的技术商业化。本研究旨在为反缠绕补偿理论在受刚体动力学控制的非线性系统中的应用以及在此类系统中自然产生的执行器控制分配和执行器量化问题做出基础性贡献。它通过有目的地利用刚体动力学的特殊非线性结构，并通过增强线性系统的抗卷绕补偿设计方法来处理执行器饱和的长时间周期来实现这一结果。研究结果将产生新的现实控制体系结构，确保在广泛的飞行条件下的稳定性，并在存在饱和控制信号时提供严格的性能保证，即使在非线性动态普遍存在的情况下也是如此。高保真着陆器和上升飞行器模型的模拟，以及四轴飞行器的实验，将用于演示设计方法和验证理论性能预测。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research was funded under the NSF Directorate for Engineering - UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Lead Agency Opportunity (ENG-EPSRC), NSF 20-510.This grant will fund research that enables improved design of aerial and space vehicles, such as drones, missiles, rockets, and planetary landers, while ensuring desired flight performance, thereby promoting the progress of science and securing the national defense. Propellers and thrusters used by aerial and space vehicles to control their flight path are limited in the forces they can produce. If the vehicle’s flight control system requests forces that exceed such limits, a consequence may be undesirable flight performance that hinders the mission. To avoid this, engineers presently exploit over-sized thrusters at the expense of increased vehicle weight and cost. In contrast, the control methods developed in this project allow vehicles to be designed with smaller-sized actuators while safeguarding against unstable flight behavior. Applications include Martian landers and ascent vehicles that need to be lightweight in order to reduce costs of production and energy consumption, yet require flight control systems that can compensate for unpredictable environmental forces that otherwise prevent the vehicles from following a desired trajectory. Integrated research, teaching, and outreach activities will be carried out through affiliations with university institutes and external centers that foster multidisciplinary collaboration among engineering and other STEM departments, and through collaborations with scholarly organizations that serve currently underrepresented populations. Unique opportunities for broader impact will result from jointly organized workshops and cross-border mentorship of graduate students by researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom. Engagement with industry and federal research agencies will allow knowledge transfer and possible technology commercialization.This research aims to make fundamental contributions to the application of anti-windup compensation theory to nonlinear systems governed by rigid body dynamics, and to problems of actuator control allocation and actuator quantization that naturally arise in such systems. It achieves this outcome by purposely exploiting the particular nonlinear structure of rigid body dynamics and by enhancing anti-windup compensation design methods for linear systems in order to handle prolonged periods of actuator saturation. The outcomes from the research will yield new realistic control architectures that ensure stability across a wide range of flight conditions, with rigorous performance guarantees also when saturated control signals exist, even when nonlinear dynamics are prevalent. Simulations of high-fidelity lander and ascent vehicle models, as well as experiments with quadcopters, will be used to demonstrate the design methods and validate the theoretical performance predictions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.