Controllo del volo di velivoli autonomi: stato dell'arte e sfide future Marco Lovera Aerospace Systems and Control Laboratory Department of Aerospace

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1 Controllo del volo di velivoli autonomi: stato dell'arte e sfide future Marco Lovera Aerospace Systems and Control Laboratory Department of Aerospace Science and Technology Politecnico di Milano

2 Outline 2 Introduction Flight control: what is possible today? Two examples. Flight control by function (GNC): Guidance Navigation Control today and tomorrow. GNC+I, I=interaction With the environment With other aircraft Concluding remarks

3 Introduction 3 UAVs have been used extensively for military applications for a long time. Military UAVs are aerospace systems in the proper sense as they are Designed and produced by aerospace companies Often derived from piloted aircraft/rotorcraft How about civil UAVs?

4 Introduction 4 Civil UAVs on the contrary are the result of a convergence of many areas of engineering and many different technologies both growing and changing very rapidly. Communications AI and Machine Learning Aerospace UAVs Control Systems Industrial robotics Computer Science Mobile robotics

5 Enablers 5 Which are the technological drivers of the civil UAV revolution?

6 Enablers 6 Which are the technological drivers of the civil UAV revolution? Mobile phones have led to a formidable, still ongoing, research effort in many relevant areas, such as Processors Batteries Cameras with the aim of improving performance while reducing costs and pushing miniaturisation.

7 Enablers 7 Which are the technological drivers of the civil UAV revolution? Mobile gaming on the other hand is pushing the development in sensors Accelerometers Gyros Magnetometers... which are increasingly accurate, reliable and cheap.

8 Flight control: what is possible today? 8 Let s look at two examples: of (fairly extreme) piloted flight of state of the art autonomous flight

9 Piloted flight 9 First Person View (FPV) drone racing!

10 Autonomous flight 10 High performance collision avoidance

11 Flight control by function 11 Flight control systems mainly carry out three functions: Guidance FCS Control Navigation

12 Flight control by function 12 Flight control systems mainly carry out three functions: Guidance Guidance Control FCS Navigation Determination of desired flight path from the current position to the desired target.

13 Flight control by function 13 Flight control systems mainly carry out three functions: Guidance Navigation Guidance Control FCS Navigation Determination at a given time of the aircraft position and velocity.

14 Flight control by function 14 Flight control systems mainly carry out three functions: Guidance Navigation Guidance Control Control FCS Navigation Generation of the forces needed to maintain stability, reject disturbances and execute guidance commands.

15 A classical UAV autopilot 15 The Navigation and Control technology inside the AR.Drone micro UAV, 2011 IFAC World Congress

16 Guidance 16 Guidance Present: Waypoint guidance Off-line trajectory planning Future: on-board planning and re-planning for autonomous operation S. Draghi, L. Trainelli, OPTIMAL DESIGN OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL AERIAL MISSION PROFILES

17 Navigation 17 Guidance Navigation Present: Integrated inertial/gps Partial integration of visual information Future: Full integration of visual information (cameras + optic flow) Distributed estimation

18 Control 18 Navigation Guidance Control Present: Mostly linear flight control laws Limited ability to adapt Future: Mostly nonlinear flight control laws Adaptation capability Distributed control to carry out complex tasks

19 A new letter Interaction 19 Guidance Interaction FCS Navigation Control

20 Interaction with the environment 20 Navigation Guidance Interaction Control Both in terms of perception and of manipulation

21 Interaction with other UAVs 21 Navigation Guidance Interaction Control IEEE Control Systems Magazine, August 2016

22 Template autopilot for autonomous UAV 22

23 Conclusions 23 Flight control for civil UAV is an extremely active area for R&D New applications pose increasing challenges in all areas of the GNC+I loop The industry is growing rapidly, so opportunities abound! New issues however are created, namely Safety Security Airspace integration which will be discussed in the following.