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Tracking of Ground Mobile Targets by Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Tan, Ruoyu
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1378194694

Abstract Details

2013, MS, University of Cincinnati, Engineering and Applied Science: Mechanical Engineering.
An Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. It can be controlled either autonomously by computers onboard, or using a remote control by a pilot on the ground, or in another vehicle. In both military and civilian sectors, UAVs are quickly obtaining popularity and expected to expand dramatically in the years to come. As UAVs gain more attention, one of the immediate requirements would be to have UAVs work as much autonomously as possible. One of the common tasks that UAVs would be engaged in is target tracking which has various potential applications in military field, law-enforcement, wildlife protection effort, and so on. This thesis focuses on development of a controller for UAVs to track ground target. In particular, this thesis focuses on quadrotor UAV, which is a multicopter that is lifted and propelled using four motors. Admittedly, several target tracking control methods have been developed in recent years. However, only a few of them have been applied on a quadrotor. Most of these tracking methods, particularly those based on Proportional Derivative (PD) control laws, which have been applied on quadrotors, are not time efficient due to practical acceleration constraint and a number of parameters that need to be tuned. The UAV control problem can be divided into 4 sub-problems: Position Control, Motor Control, Trajectory Tracking and Trajectory Generation. In this thesis, the dynamic equations of motion for quadrotors and a Proportional Derivative control law is derived to solve the problems of Position Control, Motor Control and Trajectory Tracking. A Proportional Navigation (PN) based switching strategy is proposed to address the problem of Trajectory Generation. The experiments and numerical simulations are performed using non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets. The simulation results show that the proposed PN based switching strategy not only carries out effective tracking but also results into smaller oscillations and errors when compared to the widely used PD tracking method. The switching strategy, as proposed as a solution to target tracking problem, leaves an important question with regard to when should the switching happen. It is intuitive that the time of switching will play a role in how fast the UAV converges to the target. The second problem considered in this thesis relates to the optimal time of switching that would minimize the positional error between the UAV and the target. An optimal switching strategy is proposed to obtain the optimal switching time for both non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets. Analytical solutions that generate trajectories based on PN and PD methods are used in this strategy. The numerical simulations validate the optimality, reliability, and accuracy of the proposed method for both non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets.
Manish Kumar, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Kelly Cohen, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
David Thompson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
94 p.
Mechanical Engineering
Unmanned Air Vehicle; quadrotor UAV; multicopter; Proportional Navigation; Trajectory Generation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tan, R. (2013). Tracking of Ground Mobile Targets by Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1378194694

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tan, Ruoyu. Tracking of Ground Mobile Targets by Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. 2013. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1378194694.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tan, Ruoyu. "Tracking of Ground Mobile Targets by Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1378194694

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.