Dynamic Control Allocation for Dual-Tilt UAV Platforms

TL;DR

This paper proposes a hierarchical control strategy for dual-tilt hexarotor UAVs, explicitly modeling actuator saturation and optimizing actuator states for improved trajectory tracking.

Contribution

It introduces a novel control allocation law that accounts for actuator saturation and explores the impact of propeller tilt angles on control performance.

Findings

The control allocation law effectively manages actuator saturation effects.

Asymmetric tilt angle objectives influence control efficiency.

Simulations validate the proposed control strategy.

Abstract

This paper focuses on dynamic control allocation for a hexarotor UAV platform, considering a trajectory tracking task as as case study. It is assumed that the platform is dual-tilting, meaning that it is able to tilt each propeller independently during flight, along two orthogonal axis. We present a hierarchical control structure composed of a high-level controller generating the required wrench for the tracking task, and a control allocation law ensuring that the actuators produce such wrench. The allocator imposes desired first-order dynamics on the actuators set, and exploits system redundancy to optimize the actuators state with respect to a given objective function. Unlike other studies on the subject, we explicitly model actuator saturation and provide theoretical insights on its effect on control performances. We also investigate the role of propeller tilt angles, by imposing asymmetric shapes in the objective function. Numerical simulations are presented to validate the allocation strategy.