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Robotics
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Navigation and Control of UAVs
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Navigation and Control of UAVs

A special issue of Robotics (ISSN 2218-6581). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerospace Robotics and Autonomous Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 40983

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Houria Siguerdidjane

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CentraleSupélec, Gif-sur-Yvette 91190, France
Interests: nonlinear systems; aerospace control problems; power systems
Prof. Dr. David Hyunchul Shim

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, Daejeon 34141, Korea
Interests: UAV, autonomous vehicles, robotics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have shown remarkable advances over several domains of civilian or military operations, particularly in terms of control stabilization on prescribed tracking trajectories, path-following, and waypoint passage precision; obstacle avoidance; and hovering situations. Indeed, due to the large spectrum of UAV applications that are constantly emerging, intelligent control applications are paving the future.

The resulting actual UAV performance stems from the efficiency of the navigation and control systems. However, in spite of this enormous progress made in theoretical investigations, the performance may become considerably worse in harsh flight conditions. As the energy on board is limited, it does not allow for alternative solutions that can result in dramatic situations. Furthermore, the evolution of relevant technologies for UAVs, including measurement and detection units, localization, and mapping modules requires a performance increase.

Therefore, the objective of this Special Issue is to underline the methodologies and techniques of navigation and control that are currently under development, in simulation tests or validated through experiments. In order to match the safety guarantees, developments are made to maintain the UAV within an acceptable level of performance in such a way that the mission for which the UAV is devoted cannot fail under harsh conditions. Consequently, the UAV should fully accomplish its mission by showing the capability to reject disturbances (constant or not), making appropriate decisions when flying in specific hostile environments, optimizing its energy on board, and being robust with regard to structured uncertainties, while taking into consideration physical constraints.

In addition, to improve systems and fulfill safety guarantees, the algorithms of control and guidance-navigation should have good estimates of the UAVs’ state and should be well implemented and well optimized through an easily reconfigurable architecture, profiting from the increase of computational capabilities.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • The navigation and control of UAVs in harsh conditions
  • UAVs control in uncertain environments
  • High-accuracy navigation techniques
  • Vision-based integrated navigation
  • Localization, navigation, and dynamic path planning
  • Quantum control in the framework of UAVs
  • Robust IMC- and MPC-based control
  • Intelligent control of UAVs
  • Distributed and consensus control of multiple UAVs
  • Cooperative control of multiple UAVs
  • Autonomous collision avoidance control
  • Path planning optimization and coverage
  • Energy shaping control
  • UAV motion planning
  • Energy optimization
  • Low-delay control techniques

Prof. Dr. Houria Siguerdidjane
Prof. Dr. David Hyunchul Shim
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Robotics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1459 KiB  
Article
Nonlinear Model Predictive Horizon for Optimal Trajectory Generation
by Younes Al Younes and Martin Barczyk
Robotics 2021, 10(3), 90; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics10030090 - 14 Jul 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5160
Abstract
This paper presents a trajectory generation method for a nonlinear system under closed-loop control (here a quadrotor drone) motivated by the Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) method. Unlike NMPC, the proposed method employs a closed-loop system dynamics model within the optimization problem to [...] Read more.
This paper presents a trajectory generation method for a nonlinear system under closed-loop control (here a quadrotor drone) motivated by the Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) method. Unlike NMPC, the proposed method employs a closed-loop system dynamics model within the optimization problem to efficiently generate reference trajectories in real time. We call this approach the Nonlinear Model Predictive Horizon (NMPH). The closed-loop model used within NMPH employs a feedback linearization control law design to decrease the nonconvexity of the optimization problem and thus achieve faster convergence. For robust trajectory planning in a dynamically changing environment, static and dynamic obstacle constraints are supported within the NMPH algorithm. Our algorithm is applied to a quadrotor system to generate optimal reference trajectories in 3D, and several simulation scenarios are provided to validate the features and evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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13 pages, 3544 KiB  
Article
Nonlinear Robust Control of a New Reconfigurable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
by Saddam Hocine Derrouaoui, Yasser Bouzid and Mohamed Guiatni
Robotics 2021, 10(2), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics10020076 - 23 May 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 5959
Abstract
In this paper, a nonlinear robust Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Controller (FTSMC) is designed to control and stabilize a new reconfigurable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in the presence of uncertain and variable parameters. The studied UAV is an over-actuated system due the number [...] Read more.
In this paper, a nonlinear robust Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Controller (FTSMC) is designed to control and stabilize a new reconfigurable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in the presence of uncertain and variable parameters. The studied UAV is an over-actuated system due the number of actuator control inputs. It can modify the length and the angles between its four arms in different ways, which result an important variation in its Center of Gravity (CoG), inertia, and control matrix. The proposed FTSMC offers many advantages such as, reaching the desired states in a finite-time unlike the conventional sliding mode, robustness vis-a-vis uncertain and unknown parameters, fast convergence towards the sliding surface, high accuracy and reducing the chattering phenomena. Furthermore, the closed-loop stability of the this UAV is ensured by the Lyapunov theory. The eight actuators used to rotate and extend the UAV arms are controlled by simple Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers. Lastly, the robustness and efficiency of the proposed controller are evaluated through a flight scenario, where the UAV geometric parameters are variable over time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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12 pages, 2928 KiB  
Article
Identifying Potential Mosquito Breeding Grounds: Assessing the Efficiency of UAV Technology in Public Health
by Jared Schenkel, Paul Taele, Daniel Goldberg, Jennifer Horney and Tracy Hammond
Robotics 2020, 9(4), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics9040091 - 11 Nov 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5419
Abstract
Human ecology has played an essential role in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. With standing water as a significant factor contributing to mosquito breeding, artificial containers disposed of as trash—which are capable of holding standing water—provide suitable environments for mosquito larvae to develop. [...] Read more.
Human ecology has played an essential role in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. With standing water as a significant factor contributing to mosquito breeding, artificial containers disposed of as trash—which are capable of holding standing water—provide suitable environments for mosquito larvae to develop. The development of these larvae further contributes to the possibility for local transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in urban areas such as Zika virus. One potential solution to address this issue involves leveraging unmanned aerial vehicles that are already systematically becoming more utilized in the field of geospatial technology. With higher pixel resolution in comparison to satellite imagery, as well as having the ability to update spatial data more frequently, we are interested in investigating the feasibility of unmanned aerial vehicles as a potential technology for efficiently mapping potential breeding grounds. Therefore, we conducted a comparative study that evaluated the performance of an unmanned aerial vehicle for identifying artificial containers to that of conventionally utilized GPS receivers. The study was designed to better inform researchers on the current viability of such devices for locating a potential factor (i.e., small form factor artificial containers that can host mosquito breeding grounds) in the local transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. By assessing the performance of an unmanned aerial vehicle against ground-truth global position system technology, we can determine the effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles on this problem through our selected metrics of: timeliness, sensitivity, and specificity. For the study, we investigated these effectiveness metrics between the two technologies of interest in surveying a study area: unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., DJI Phantom 3 Standard) and global position system-based receivers (i.e., Garmin GPSMAP 76Cx and the Garmin GPSMAP 78). We first conducted a design study with nine external participants, who collected 678 waypoint data and 214 aerial images from commercial GPS receivers and UAV, respectively. The participants then processed these data with professional mapping software for visually identifying and spatially marking artificial containers between the aerial imagery and the ground truth GPS data, respectively. From applying statistical methods (i.e., two-tailed, paired t-test) on the participants’ data for comparing how the two technologies performed against each other, our data analysis revealed that the GPS method performed better than the UAV method for the study task of identifying the target small form factor artificial containers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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20 pages, 3422 KiB  
Article
Integrity Analysis for GPS-Based Navigation of UAVs in Urban Environment
by Oguz Kagan Isik, Juhyeon Hong, Ivan Petrunin and Antonios Tsourdos
Robotics 2020, 9(3), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics9030066 - 25 Aug 2020
Cited by 51 | Viewed by 7756
Abstract
The increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in safety-critical missions in both civilian and military areas demands accurate and reliable navigation, where one of the key sources of navigation information is presented by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). In challenging conditions, for [...] Read more.
The increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in safety-critical missions in both civilian and military areas demands accurate and reliable navigation, where one of the key sources of navigation information is presented by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). In challenging conditions, for example, in urban areas, the accuracy of GNSS-based navigation may degrade significantly due to user-satellite geometry and obscuration issues without being noticed by the user. Therefore, considering the essentially dynamic rate of change in this type of environment, integrity monitoring is of critical importance for understanding the level of trust we have in positioning and timing data. In this paper, the dilution of precision (DOP) coefficients under nominal and challenging conditions were investigated for the purpose of integrity monitoring in urban environments. By analyzing positioning information in a simulated urban environment using a software-based GNSS receiver, the integrity monitoring approach based on joint consideration of GNSS observables and environmental parameters has been proposed. It was shown that DOP coefficients, when considered together with a number of visible satellites and cut-off elevations specific to the urban environment carry valuable integrity information that is difficult to get using existing integrity monitoring approaches. This has allowed generating indirect integrity measures based on cut-off elevation and satellite visibility that can be used for UAV path planning and guidance in urban environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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35 pages, 3598 KiB  
Article
Visual Flight Rules-Based Collision Avoidance Systems for UAV Flying in Civil Aerospace
by Hamid Alturbeh and James F. Whidborne
Robotics 2020, 9(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics9010009 - 25 Feb 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7852
Abstract
The operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in civil airspace is restricted by the aviation authorities, which require full compliance with regulations that apply for manned aircraft. This paper proposes control algorithms for a collision avoidance system that can be used as an [...] Read more.
The operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in civil airspace is restricted by the aviation authorities, which require full compliance with regulations that apply for manned aircraft. This paper proposes control algorithms for a collision avoidance system that can be used as an advisory system or a guidance system for UAVs that are flying in civil airspace under visual flight rules. A decision-making system for collision avoidance is developed based on the rules of the air. The proposed architecture of the decision-making system is engineered to be implementable in both manned aircraft and UAVs to perform different tasks ranging from collision detection to a safe avoidance manoeuvre initiation. Avoidance manoeuvres that are compliant with the rules of the air are proposed based on pilot suggestions for a subset of possible collision scenarios. The proposed avoidance manoeuvres are parameterized using a geometric approach. An optimal collision avoidance algorithm is developed for real-time local trajectory planning. Essentially, a finite-horizon optimal control problem is periodically solved in real-time hence updating the aircraft trajectory to avoid obstacles and track a predefined trajectory. The optimal control problem is formulated in output space, and parameterized by using B-splines. Then the optimal designed outputs are mapped into control inputs of the system by using the inverse dynamics of a fixed wing aircraft. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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22 pages, 1148 KiB  
Article
Cooperative Optimization of UAVs Formation Visual Tracking
by Nicola Lissandrini, Giulia Michieletto, Riccardo Antonello, Marta Galvan, Alberto Franco and Angelo Cenedese
Robotics 2019, 8(3), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics8030052 - 7 Jul 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6630
Abstract
The use of unmanned vehicles to perform tiring, hazardous, repetitive tasks, is becoming a reality out of the academy laboratories, getting more and more interest for several application fields from the industrial, to the civil, to the military contexts. In particular, these technologies [...] Read more.
The use of unmanned vehicles to perform tiring, hazardous, repetitive tasks, is becoming a reality out of the academy laboratories, getting more and more interest for several application fields from the industrial, to the civil, to the military contexts. In particular, these technologies appear quite promising when they employ several low-cost resource-constrained vehicles leveraging their coordination to perform complex tasks with efficiency, flexibility, and adaptation that are superior to those of a single agent (even if more instrumented). In this work, we study one of said applications, namely the visual tracking of an evader (target) by means of a fleet of autonomous aerial vehicles, with the specific aim of focusing on the target so as to perform an accurate position estimation while concurrently allowing a wide coverage over the monitored area so as to limit the probability of losing the target itself. These clearly conflicting objectives call for an optimization approach that is here developed: by considering both aforementioned aspects and the cooperative capabilities of the fleet, the designed algorithm allows controling in real time the single fields of view so as to counteract evasion maneuvers and maximize an overall performance index. The proposed strategy is discussed and finally assessed through the realistic Gazebo-ROS simulation framework. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Navigation and Control of UAVs)
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