Author

Joshua Hill

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Farbod Fahimi

Committee Member

Chang-kwon Kang

Committee Member

Mark Lin

Committee Member

Howard Chen

Committee Member

Avimanyu Sahoo

Research Advisor

Farbod Fahimi

Subject(s)

Micro air vehicles--Aerodynamics, Micro air vehicles--Control, Sliding mode control

Abstract

Small aerial systems, such as nature-inspired flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAV), operate in uncertain and dynamic environments that are subject to unknown disturbances, e.g., wind gusts. With the proliferation of inexpensive system components, extensive research has been dedicated to improving the operation of these FWMAVS, both in civilian and military applications. Given dynamic environments and variations in individual components, sliding mode control has become an increasingly applied control method for FWMAV. Its robustness proves invaluable to ensure stability in the presence of uncertain system parameters and environmental disturbances. This dissertation presents three discrete-time sliding mode control (DSMC) methods and applies them to different simulated FWMAV systems: 1) a robust DSMC for a theoretical butterfly-based FWMAV with variable flapping frequency, 2) a robust Adaptive DSMC (ADSMC) for a FWMAV with unknown state parameters, and 3) a modified robust ADSMC for a FWMAV with unknown state parameters and an unknown control parameter.

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