Related papers: Airspeed Forward-Invariance for Unpowered Fixed-Wi…
The recent years have witnessed increased development of small, autonomous fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In order to unlock widespread applicability of these platforms, they need to be capable of operating under a variety of…
Dynamic soaring is a flying technique to exploit the energy available in wind shear layers, enabling potentially unlimited flight without the need for internal energy sources. We propose a framework for autonomous dynamic soaring with a…
Efficient real-time trajectory planning and control for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles is challenging due to their non-holonomic nature, complex dynamics, and the additional uncertainties introduced by unknown aerodynamic effects. In…
Small, low-speed fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating autonomously, beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) will inevitably encounter winds rising to levels near or exceeding the vehicles' nominal airspeed. In this paper, we…
Fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer significant performance advantages over rotary-wing UAVs in terms of speed, endurance, and efficiency. However, these vehicles have traditionally been severely limited with regards to…
As off-the-shelf (OTS) autopilots become more widely available and user-friendly and the drone market expands, safer, more efficient, and more complex motion planning and control will become necessary for fixed-wing aerial robotic…
Acceleration-commanded guidance laws (e.g., proportional navigation) are attractive for high-level decision making, but their direct deployment on fixed-wing UAVs is challenging because accelerations are not directly actuated and must be…
This paper evaluates and compares the performance of model-free and model-based reinforcement learning for the attitude control of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles using PID as a reference point. The comparison focuses on their ability…
This paper presents real-time guidance strategies for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can be used to enhance their flight endurance by utilizing {\sl insitu} measurements of wind speeds and wind gradients. In these strategies, periodic…
A control design approach to achieve fully autonomous take-off and flight maneuvers with a tethered aircraft is presented and demonstrated in real-world flight tests with a small-scale prototype. A ground station equipped with a controlled…
Flying animals resort to fast, large-degree-of-freedom motion of flapping wings, a key feature that distinguishes them from rotary or fixed-winged robotic fliers with limited motion of aerodynamic surfaces. However, flapping-wing…
This study presents a real-time guidance strategy for an unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can be used to enhance their flight endurance by utilizing {\sl insitu} measurements of wind speeds and wind gradients. In these strategies,…
This paper addresses the path following control problem for scale-model fixed-wing aircraft. Kinematic guidance and dynamic control laws are developed within a single coherent framework that exploits a simple generic model of aerodynamics…
Birds rely on active high-acceleration morphing and flapping to navigate complex airflows, but they can also maintain stable fixed-wing postures under persistent atmospheric disturbances. Here, we show that avian wings exhibit aerodynamic…
This paper presents an algorithm for solving the problem of tracking smooth curves by a fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle travelling with a constant airspeed and under a constant wind disturbance. The algorithm is based on the idea of…
The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…
In this paper the problem of guidance formulation for autonomous soft landing of unmanned aerial vehicles on stationary, moving, or accelerating / maneuvering ground vehicles at desired approach angles in both azimuth and elevation is…
Aeroelastic structures, from insect wings to wind turbine blades, experience transient unsteady aerodynamic loads that are coupled to their motion. Effective real-time control of flexible structures relies on accurate and efficient…
Gliding offers small fixed-wing UAVs extended endurance and silent operation but requires accurate energy management, especially under wind disturbances and obstacle constraints. Traditional Total Energy Control Systems based controllers…
Many unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can remain aerodynamically flyable after sustaining structural or control surface damage, yet insufficient robustness in conventional autopilots often leads to mission failure. This paper proposes a…