Modular Autopilot Design and Development Featuring Bayesian Non-parametric Adaptive Control

Abstract

Over the last few decades, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS, have become a critical part of the defense of our nation and the growth of the aerospace sector. UAS have a great potential for the agricultural industry, first response, and ecological monitoring. However, the wide range of applications require many mission-specific vehicle platforms. These platforms must operate reliably in a range of environments, and in presence of significant uncertainties. The accepted practice for enabling autonomously flying UAS today relies on extensive manual tuning of the UAS autopilot parameters, or time consuming approximate modeling of the dynamics of the UAS. These methods may lead to overly conservative controllers or excessive development times. A comprehensive approach to the development of an adaptive, airframe-independent controller is presented. The control algorithm leverages a nonparametric, Bayesian approach to adaptation, and is used as a cornerstone for the development of a new modular autopilot. Promising simulation results are presented for the adaptive controller, as well as, flight test results for the modular autopilot.