Double-layer fuzzy adaptive NMPC coordinated control method of energy management and trajectory tracking for hybrid electric fixed wing UAVs

The energy management and trajectory tracking control are crucial to realize long-endurance autonomous flight for hybrid electric UAVs. This study aims to comprehensively consider energy management and trajectory tracking for hybrid electric fixed wing UAVs with photovoltaic panel/fuel cell/battery. A double-layer fuzzy adaptive nonlinear model predictive control method (DFNMPC) is proposed. Separated by the surplus demand power, energy management and trajectory tracking problem are decoupled into the high-layer fuzzy adaptive nonlinear model predictive controll problem (H-FNMPC) and low-layer fuzzy adaptive nonlinear model predictive controll problem (L-FNMPC). H-FNMPC solves the trajectory tracking and navigation control probelm for the greatest benefit of solar energy. L-FNMPC solves the power allocation problem of hybrid energy system for minimum equivalent hydrogen consumption. A fuzzy adaptive prediction horizon adjustment method based on UAV maneuvering degree is proposed to effectively improve proposed method adaptability to different mission profiles. Analogously, a fuzzy adaptive equivalent hydrogen consumption factor adjustment method in L-FNMPC is proposed to ensure the flexible utilization of battery. In addition, an equivalent hydrogen flow rate calculation method based on the real-time current ratio is proposed for PV/FC/Battery hybrid energy system. Numerical simulation results including a spiral trajectory tracking and a quadrilateral trajectory tracking, demonstrate that DFNMPC can simultaneously handle energy management and trajectory tracking problem for hybrid electric UAVs. Compared to hierarchical fuzzy state machine strategy, DFNMPC can save 13.3% hydrogen for the spiral trajectory tracking, and 56.9% for the quadrilateral trajectory tracking. It indicates that the energy efficiency can be improved from both levels of energy management and flight motion. The proposed method prospected for exploring high-energy-efficiency autonomous flight of hybrid electric UAVs in the future.     

车载多架无人机快速供电测试和启动系统设计

介绍一种车载多架无人机快速供电测试和启动系统的设计,包括车载地面检测计算机、直流电源、电气控制装置、发射箱供电测试及启动装置、地面检测计算机、供电测试接口装置和车载配电网络。其中车载直流电源为无人机供电测试和发动机启动提供电源;地面检测计算机发出的供电测试、启动指令送给电气控制装置,通过供电测试接口装置、车载配电网络向无人机供电,当无人机测试正常后,则可进行发动机启动。发动机的启动电源采用多个发射箱启动直流母线并联供电。该系统提高了多架无人机供电测试和启动发动机的自动化程度。     

Autonomous terrain-following for unmanned air vehicles

This paper presents an integrated guidance and control design scheme for an unmanned air vehicle (UAV), and its flight test results. The paper focuses on the longitudinal control and guidance aspects, with particular emphasis on the terrain-following problem. An introduction to the mission, and the terrain-following problem is given first. Waypoints for climb and descent are defined. Computation of the reference trajectory in the vertical plane is discussed, including a terrain-following (TF) algorithm for real-time calculation of climb/descent points and altitudes. The algorithm is particularly suited for online computation and is therefore useful for autonomous flight. The algorithm computes the height at which the vehicle should fly so that a specified clearance from the underlying terrain is always maintained, while ensuring that the vehicle’s rate of climb and rate of descent constraints are not violated. The output of the terrain-following algorithm is used to construct a smooth reference trajectory for the vehicle to track. The design of a robust controller for altitude tracking and stability augmentation of the vehicle is then presented. The controller uses elevators for pitch control in the inner loop, while the reference pitch commands are generated by the outer altitude control loop. The controller tracks the reference trajectory computed by the terrain-following algorithm. The design of an electromechanical actuator for actuating the control surfaces of the vehicle during flight is also discussed. The entire guidance and control scheme is implemented on an actual experimental vehicle and flight test results are presented and discussed.     

Coverage path planning for UAVs based on enhanced exact cellular decomposition method

In this paper, an enhanced exact cellular decomposition method to plan the coverage path of UAVs in a polygon area is proposed. To be more specific, the contributions of the paper are: firstly, the turning motion of UAVs is shown to be less efficient from the viewpoints of route length, duration and energy. Secondly, the problem of coverage Path Planning (CPP) in a convex polygon area is transformed to width calculation of the convex polygon, and a novel algorithm to calculate the widths of convex polygons with time complexity of O(n) is developed. The path of the least number of turns for an UAV based on the widths of convex polygons is devised. Thirdly, a convex decomposition algorithm for minimum width sum based on the greedy recursive method which revolves around decomposing the concave area into convex subregions is developed. It is proved that the algorithm is a polynomial time algorithm. To avoid unnecessary back and forth motion, some entirely adjacent subregions are combined. Finally, comparing different weights of two joint-points, a subregion connection algorithm based on minimum traversal of weighted undirected graph is proposed to connect the coverage paths of the subregions. Simulation results show that the proposed method is feasible and effective.     

无人机自组网路由协议研究综述

随着无人机软硬件技术的发展,多无人机集群自组织形成的无人机自组网（Flying Ad-Hoc networks, FANETs）受到了越来越多的来自学术界和工业界的关注,其灵活的部署和快速的反应能力使其能高效地完成多种多样的任务。而无人机自组网路由协议是提高服务质量（Quality of service, QoS）最重要的方法之一,但无人机自组网的移动性和动态性给路由协议的设计带来了严峻的挑战。传统的移动路由协议不能很好地满足无人机自组网的路由需求,因此研究者们从基于拓扑、地理和分层的角度提出了各式各样的无人机自组网路由协议,旨在克服移动性和提高网络的服务质量,并指出未来无人机自组网的路由协议可以考虑机会路由、软件定义网络（Software defined network,SDN）决策和预测驱动决策等综合提高QoS。本文主要针对无人机自组网网络特征,从不同的路由方法出发,SDN对路由协议进行总结和归纳,并对未来的研究方向进行了展望。     

无人机三维编队飞行的鲁棒H∞控制器设计

针对无人机编队控制中模型不确定性与外干扰同时存在的情况,首先基于无人机自身的自动驾驶仪和编队运动学关系建立了无入机编队的三维数学模型,这种建模方式物理意义明晰;进而提出一种基于鲁棒H∞控制理论的编队控制器设计方法,按前向、侧向和垂直方向3个通道分别设计控制律,降低了鲁棒控制器的调参难度,简化了三维编队控制问题.仿真结果表明了所设计的控制器的有效性,可实现无碰撞、快速、稳定地保持和调整无人机编队队形,具有良好的鲁棒性能.     

An intelligent task offloading algorithm (iTOA) for UAV edge computing network

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has emerged as a promising technology for the support of human activities, such as target tracking, disaster rescue, and surveillance. However, these tasks require a large computation load of image or video processing, which imposes enormous pressure on the UAV computation platform. To solve this issue, in this work, we propose an intelligent Task Offloading Algorithm (iTOA) for UAV edge computing network. Compared with existing methods, iTOA is able to perceive the network’s environment intelligently to decide the offloading action based on deep Monte Calor Tree Search (MCTS), the core algorithm of Alpha Go. MCTS will simulate the offloading decision trajectories to acquire the best decision by maximizing the reward, such as lowest latency or power consumption. To accelerate the search convergence of MCTS, we also proposed a splitting Deep Neural Network (sDNN) to supply the prior probability for MCTS. The sDNN is trained by a self-supervised learning manager. Here, the training data set is obtained from iTOA itself as its own teacher. Compared with game theory and greedy search-based methods, the proposed iTOA improves service latency performance by 33% and 60%, respectively.     

Efficient data management and control over WSNs using SDN‐enabled aerial networks

The recent developments in collaborative search, acquisition, and tracking have hoisted the geographical barrier. The network between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is one such collaboration, which comprises battery‐powered static sensor nodes that act as sources and sinks and UAVs that act as relays. This collaborative network presents with opportunities and advantages, but at the same time, configuration of such networks is an arduous task. The WSN nodes are characterized by constant depleting power. Their network itself requires constant management and reconfiguration. These requisites can be slaked through the formation of an efficient data dissemination algorithm, which acclimates according to the network state. Considering this, a data dissemination approach is presented in this paper, which constructs a virtual topology predicated on the charge of WSN nodes utilizing software‐defined networks (SDNs) through UAVs. The topology is constantly monitored and reconfigured when required. The aerial nodes are equipped with multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antennas in order to facilitate simultaneous communication with the ground nodes, the base station, and the SDN controller. An efficient sleep timer and backoff counter strategies are also utilized by the proposed approach. The SDN controller facilitates the topology formation and maintenance of a sleep timer and a backoff counter. The proposed model is compared with clustered hierarchical layouts and hexagonal cell layouts through the network simulations. The results suggest significant improvements in the proposed model for various metrics, such as lifetime, delay, latency, delivery ratio, and throughput in comparison with the existing solutions.     

多无人机任务推演系统研究

研究多无人机任务推演系统的设计与实现过程,在多无人机任务推演系统具体需求的基础上,设计系统的分层体系结构与具体功能模块。针对系统实现过程中的多机协同任务分配及航迹规划问题,建立相应的数学模型并使用改进遗传算法对模型进行求解。使用分布式处理技术解决模型解算与实时数据显示的矛盾。基于MapX控件实现系统中战场地图的显示与操作功能。该系统对制定合理作战方案、发挥无人机的最佳作战效能具有重要意义。     

基于多策略融合粒子群的无人机对地攻击模糊博弈决策

针对无人机协同对地攻击的复杂性和不确定性,联合防空火力压制与对地目标打击任务,引入存活因子、摩擦因子和状态因子等概念,考虑目标威胁度的模糊性,结合生存概率和武器消耗等因素,建立一种多阶段的模糊多目标任务分配规划模型.为更好地描述攻击任务的对抗性和多策略性,以博弈论为框架,将规划模型转化为模糊多目标双矩阵博弈综合集结模型.利用必要性理论将集结模型中的不确定性目标清晰化处理,进而运用熵权法对多个目标进行加权求和,将其转化为单目标双矩阵博弈模型.提出基于多策略融合粒子群算法的纳什均衡求解方法,通过引入自适应惯性权重、动态反向学习与局部变异策略,在增强种群多样性的同时,保证粒子群局部精确搜索能力.算例仿真结果验证了所提模型和方法的有效性.