Robust Coordinated Longitudinal Control of MAV Based on Energy State

TL;DR

This paper presents a robust energy-based control strategy for fixed-wing MAVs that improves altitude and airspeed regulation under wind disturbances, verified through simulation and comparison with classical methods.

Contribution

An improved energy state-based control approach using LESO and MIMO control for better MAV altitude and airspeed management under disturbances.

Findings

Enhanced control performance in simulations

Successful disturbance observation with LESO

Outperforms classical TEC in tests

Abstract

Fixed-wing Miniature Air Vehicle (MAV) is not only coupled with longitudinal motion, but also more susceptible to wind disturbance due to its lighter weight, which brings more challenges to its altitude and airspeed controller design. Therefore, in this paper, an improved longitudinal control strategy based on energy state, is proposed to address the above-mentioned issues. The control strategy utilizes the Linear Extended State Observer (LESO) to observe the energy states and the disturbance of the MAV, and then designs a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) controller based on a more coordinated Total Energy Control (TEC) strategy to control the airspeed and altitude of the MAV. The performance of this control strategy has been successfully verified in a Model-in-the-Loop (MIL) simulation with Simulink, and a comparative test with the classical TEC algorithm is carried out.