Robust Auto-Tuning Control of a Delivery Quadcopter with Motor Faults, Mass and Inertia Estimation

Mohamed Ahsan Mafaz; Nadjim Horri; Qian Lu; Matthew England

doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055

Robust Auto-Tuning Control of a Delivery Quadcopter with Motor Faults, Mass and Inertia Estimation

Mohamed Ahsan Mafaz, Nadjim Horri, Qian Lu, Matthew England

University of Leicester

Research output: Contribution to journal › Conference article › peer-review

5 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Unstable position and attitude caused by severe motor faults and varying payloads complicates the design of a reliable flight controller for delivery quadcopters during last-mile deliveries. To ensure safe and efficient operation, a novel, robust and adaptive control strategy is employed using a two-stage recursive least squares based estimation, combined with an auto-tuning mixed-sensitivity H∞ controller. A numerical simulation demonstrates fast and accurate real-time estimation of actuator loss of effectiveness and changes in the mass and inertia due to payload pickup/drop-off during delivery missions. The combined and uneven effects of multiple faults with initial mass and inertia uncertainties are efficiently compensated by this novel fault tolerant flight control strategy. The controller also improves the rejection of these uncertainties during the transient stage before the convergence of the parameter estimation. The proposed approach maintains the operational reliability of delivery quadcopters under a range of challenging uneven faults and significant mass and inertia uncertainties.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	744-749
Number of pages	6
Journal	IFAC-PapersOnLine
Volume	58
Issue number	28
Early online date	23 Jan 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 23 Jan 2025
Event	Modeling, Estimation, and Control Conference - Intercontinental on the Magnificent Mile, Chicago, United States Duration: 27 Oct 2024 → 30 Oct 2024 Conference number: 2024 https://mecc2024.a2c2.org/

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2024 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Peer review under responsibility of International Federation of Automatic Control. 10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055
© 2025, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

This document is the author’s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Keywords

quadcopter UAV
adaptive control
mixed-sensitivity H∞
faults
payload uncertainty

Access to Document

10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Mafaz2025VoRFinal published version, 1.13 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

@article{d770c810dfb54e9b9d5ca0b9349a9075,

title = "Robust Auto-Tuning Control of a Delivery Quadcopter with Motor Faults, Mass and Inertia Estimation",

abstract = "Unstable position and attitude caused by severe motor faults and varying payloads complicates the design of a reliable flight controller for delivery quadcopters during last-mile deliveries. To ensure safe and efficient operation, a novel, robust and adaptive control strategy is employed using a two-stage recursive least squares based estimation, combined with an auto-tuning mixed-sensitivity H∞ controller. A numerical simulation demonstrates fast and accurate real-time estimation of actuator loss of effectiveness and changes in the mass and inertia due to payload pickup/drop-off during delivery missions. The combined and uneven effects of multiple faults with initial mass and inertia uncertainties are efficiently compensated by this novel fault tolerant flight control strategy. The controller also improves the rejection of these uncertainties during the transient stage before the convergence of the parameter estimation. The proposed approach maintains the operational reliability of delivery quadcopters under a range of challenging uneven faults and significant mass and inertia uncertainties. ",

keywords = "quadcopter UAV, adaptive control, mixed-sensitivity H∞, faults, payload uncertainty",

author = "Mafaz, {Mohamed Ahsan} and Nadjim Horri and Qian Lu and Matthew England",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} 2024 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Peer review under responsibility of International Federation of Automatic Control. 10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055 {\textcopyright} 2025, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Copyright {\textcopyright} and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. This document is the author{\textquoteright}s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it. ; Modeling, Estimation, and Control Conference, MECC ; Conference date: 27-10-2024 Through 30-10-2024",

year = "2025",

month = jan,

day = "23",

doi = "10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055",

language = "English",

volume = "58",

pages = " 744--749",

journal = "IFAC-PapersOnLine",

issn = "2405-8963",

publisher = "IFAC Secretariat",

number = "28",

url = "https://mecc2024.a2c2.org/",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Robust Auto-Tuning Control of a Delivery Quadcopter with Motor Faults, Mass and Inertia Estimation

AU - Mafaz, Mohamed Ahsan

AU - Horri, Nadjim

AU - Lu, Qian

AU - England, Matthew

N1 - Conference code: 2024

PY - 2025/1/23

Y1 - 2025/1/23

N2 - Unstable position and attitude caused by severe motor faults and varying payloads complicates the design of a reliable flight controller for delivery quadcopters during last-mile deliveries. To ensure safe and efficient operation, a novel, robust and adaptive control strategy is employed using a two-stage recursive least squares based estimation, combined with an auto-tuning mixed-sensitivity H∞ controller. A numerical simulation demonstrates fast and accurate real-time estimation of actuator loss of effectiveness and changes in the mass and inertia due to payload pickup/drop-off during delivery missions. The combined and uneven effects of multiple faults with initial mass and inertia uncertainties are efficiently compensated by this novel fault tolerant flight control strategy. The controller also improves the rejection of these uncertainties during the transient stage before the convergence of the parameter estimation. The proposed approach maintains the operational reliability of delivery quadcopters under a range of challenging uneven faults and significant mass and inertia uncertainties.

AB - Unstable position and attitude caused by severe motor faults and varying payloads complicates the design of a reliable flight controller for delivery quadcopters during last-mile deliveries. To ensure safe and efficient operation, a novel, robust and adaptive control strategy is employed using a two-stage recursive least squares based estimation, combined with an auto-tuning mixed-sensitivity H∞ controller. A numerical simulation demonstrates fast and accurate real-time estimation of actuator loss of effectiveness and changes in the mass and inertia due to payload pickup/drop-off during delivery missions. The combined and uneven effects of multiple faults with initial mass and inertia uncertainties are efficiently compensated by this novel fault tolerant flight control strategy. The controller also improves the rejection of these uncertainties during the transient stage before the convergence of the parameter estimation. The proposed approach maintains the operational reliability of delivery quadcopters under a range of challenging uneven faults and significant mass and inertia uncertainties.

KW - quadcopter UAV

KW - adaptive control

KW - mixed-sensitivity H∞

KW - faults

KW - payload uncertainty

U2 - 10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055

DO - 10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.01.055

M3 - Conference article

SN - 2405-8963

VL - 58

SP - 744

EP - 749

JO - IFAC-PapersOnLine

JF - IFAC-PapersOnLine

IS - 28

T2 - Modeling, Estimation, and Control Conference

Y2 - 27 October 2024 through 30 October 2024

ER -

Robust Auto-Tuning Control of a Delivery Quadcopter with Motor Faults, Mass and Inertia Estimation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this