Development and Simulation of a Novel Guidance System for Quadrotors Flying in a Contested Environment

Domann, Coleton

Development and Simulation of a Novel Guidance System for Quadrotors Flying in a Contested Environment

dc.contributor.advisor	L'Afflitto, Andrea
dc.contributor.author	Domann, Coleton
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Sun, Wei
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Miller, David
dc.date.accessioned	2019-07-30T13:29:33Z
dc.date.available	2019-07-30T13:29:33Z
dc.date.issued	2019-08-01
dc.date.manuscript	2019-07-29
dc.description.abstract	Due to their accessibility, quadrotors are used as testbeds for guidance, navigation, and control systems and have been used for a wide variety of applications. These applications range from commercial aerial photography to military surveillance. In the latter case, the vehicle can be exposed to danger if opposing agents are present. The vehicle is incentivized to take cover among obstacles in order to protect it during surveillance operations. However, current research seeks only to avoid obstacles. This thesis develops a guidance system capable of generating tactical flight of a quadrotor. This guidance system consists of three complementary subsystems. The first is fast model predictive control (FMPC). This algorithm uses the dynamics of the system to plan several time steps into the future. Using this plan, the algorithm communicates the optimal action to take and repeats the process. FMPC is advantageous due to its fast computation subject to the system dynamics and customizable cost functions that can be used to enforce tactical behavior. However, it is not designed to work in non-convex environments and is vulnerable to locally optimal points that are not the goal position. The convexity issue is mitigated by using quadratic discrimination to find a locally convex region. Local optima are avoided by employing a global pathfinding algorithm built off of the motion primitive library. Flight test results demonstrating the capabilities of the resultant guidance system are presented.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/11244/321059
dc.language	en_US	en_US
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	*
dc.subject	constraint generation	en_US
dc.subject	quadrotors	en_US
dc.subject	guidance systems	en_US
dc.subject	model predictive control	en_US
dc.thesis.degree	Master of Science	en_US
dc.title	Development and Simulation of a Novel Guidance System for Quadrotors Flying in a Contested Environment	en_US
ou.group	Gallogly College of Engineering::School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering	en_US