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Active model-based nonlinear system identification of quad tilt-rotor UAV with flight experiments

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Abstract

To propose an accurate and less complex model of a special unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), namely tilt-rotor UAV (TRUAV), this study identifies the active model-based nonlinear system of a quad-TRUAV. First, a nominal nonlinear model of the vehicle is formulated. Some unstructured nonlinearities are ignored to reduce the complexity of the model. Then, due to the unstable dynamics of the open-loop system, the format of this nominal model is considered to design an innovative smooth-switch attitude control via interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC). Active model-based nonlinear system identification is studied for the vehicle with the designed control method and flight experiments. The model error vector is defined and estimated by the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to improve the accuracy of the model. The main contribution of this paper is to identify the nominal nonlinear model and to develop an active model method of the quad-TRUAV. The attitude control method with an innovative smooth-switch structure is another contribution to flight experiments. Numerical results are displayed to present the experimental results and effectiveness of the proposed nonlinear models.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Major Research Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91748130), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U1608253), and Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 6141A01061601).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xi’an Modern Control Technology Research Institute, Xi’an, 710065, China

    Zhong Liu

  2. Faculte des Sciences et Techniques, CRAN UMR 7039, CNRS, University of Lorraine, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, 54506, France

    Didier Theilliol

  3. State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Yuqing He, Feng Gu, Liying Yang & Jianda Han

  4. Institutes for Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110169, China

    Yuqing He, Feng Gu, Liying Yang & Jianda Han

  5. College of Artificial Intelligence, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jianda Han

Authors
  1. Zhong Liu
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  2. Didier Theilliol
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  3. Yuqing He
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  4. Feng Gu
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  5. Liying Yang
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  6. Jianda Han
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Correspondence to Zhong Liu.

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Liu, Z., Theilliol, D., He, Y. et al. Active model-based nonlinear system identification of quad tilt-rotor UAV with flight experiments. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 65, 182202 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-020-3074-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-020-3074-5

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