Autonomous maneuver tracking for self-piloted vehicles
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A fully autonomous flight vehicle must be capable of accurately tracking a desired trajectory for the safe and effective completion of a given mission. An approach to maneuver autopilot design is presented based on a six-degree-of-freedom nonlinear trimming algorithm coupled with a robust tracking controller. Acceleration commands required for closed-loop tracking of a desired trajectory in an Earth-fixed reference frame arc provided by a simple guidance strategy. The trimming algorithm generates optimal state commands and feedforward controls to accomplish the maneuver, while assuring that these commands can be tracked by an inner-loop controller without violating vehicle performance or actuator constraints. This approach is demonstrated in simulated flight of an actual fixed-wing uninhabited aerial vehicle, named Ariel. Excellent tracking performance is achieved for a representative three-dimensional trajectory using a high-fidelity aircraft model with nonlinear dynamics and realistic wind gust disturbances. In addition, an analysis of system robustness to uncertainty in the vehicle model is performed. 1998 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
