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CEAS EuroGNC 2022

Accurate tracking of highly dynamic airplane trajectories using incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion
Fabian Gücker PhD Researcher, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, 38108, Braunschweig, Germany.
Yannic Beyer PhD Researcher, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, 38108, Braunschweig, Germany.
Meiko Steen Senior Researcher, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, 38108, Braunschweig, Germany.
Peter Hecker Professor, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, 38108, Braunschweig, Germany.
Abstract:
Applications like automated dynamic soaring in the atmospheric boundary layer demand high accuracy and robustness from the path following flight controller. This presents a challenge because dynamic soaring trajectories in the atmospheric boundary layer typically involve load factors of about 5g as well as large bank angles. Therefore, this paper presents a novel model-based controller whose performance is investigated using a generic highly dynamic smooth flight path. The controller consists of two cascades: an outer loop position controller and an inner loop quaternion-based attitude controller both of relative degree two. Based on the given flight path, a modified Frenet-Serret frame is used to feedforward the ideal flight-path axis system to the attitude controller. This reduces the control effort of the position controller, which only has to command small attitude changes concerning the ideal flight-path axis system. Both the feedforward and the position controller rely on purely kinematic quantities to increase the robustness. The attitude controller includes direct lift control by symmetric aileron deflection and is based on the robust method of incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion with control allocation. In the numerical simulation, we show for a 1kg motor glider that the proposed controller design achieves high tracking accuracy. In future work, the control performance and robustness should be compared with that of other control concepts and validation should take place in flight testing.
Keywords: Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion; Kinematic Trajectory Tracking & Control; Modified Frenet-Serret Frame; Quaternion Attitude Control
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2022-069


Fabian Gücker, Yannic Beyer, Meiko Steen, Peter Hecker: Accurate tracking of highly dynamic airplane trajectories using incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion. Proceedings of the 2022 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Berlin, Germany. May 2022. CEAS-GNC-2022-069.
BibTeX entry:

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2022-069,
    authors = {Gücker, Fabian and Beyer, Yannic and Steen, Meiko and Hecker, Peter},
    title = {Accurate tracking of highly dynamic airplane trajectories using incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2022 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Berlin, Germany},
    month = may,
    year = {2022},
    note = {CEAS-GNC-2022-069}
}