Autonomous helicopter formation using model predictive control

Hoam Chung, S. Shankar Sastry

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Formation flight is the primary movement technique for teams of helicopters. However, the potential for accidents is greatly increased when helicopter teams are required to fly in tight formations and under harsh conditions. The starting point for safe autonomous flight formations is to design a distributed control law attenuating external disturbances coming into a formation, so that each vehicle can safely maintain sufficient space between it and all other vehicles. In order to avoid the conservative nature inherent in distributed MPC algorithms, we begin by designing a stable MPC for individual vehicles, and then introducing carefully designed inter-agent coupling terms in each performance index. The proposed algorithm works in a decentralized manner, and is applied to the problem of helicopter formations comprised of heterogenous vehicles. The disturbance attenuation property of the proposed MPC controller is validated throughout a series of computer simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCollection of Technical Papers - AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference 2006
Pages459-473
Number of pages15
Volume1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2006
Externally publishedYes
EventAIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference 2006 - Keystone, CO, United States of America
Duration: 21 Aug 200624 Aug 2006

Conference

ConferenceAIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference 2006
Country/TerritoryUnited States of America
CityKeystone, CO
Period21/08/0624/08/06

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