Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

PIM Digital Redesign and Experiments of a Roll-Angle Controller for a VTOL-UAV

Takashi Kashimura* and Noriyuki Hori+
Digital Control Laboratory Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering University of Tsukuba 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573 * Email: takashik@edu.esys.tsukuba.ac.jp Telephone: +81-29-853-5566, Fax: +81-29-853-5207 + Email: hori@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp Telephone: +81-29-853-5139, Fax: +81-29-853-5207

Abstract This paper is concerned with the roll-angle control of a miniature, planar, Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which is actuated by air-jets supplied from the ground. A control system is designed in analog domain using a partial model matching method, discretized using the so-called the Plant-Input-Mapping (PIM) Method, and implemented using a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). It is found that the plant model identified accurately in open loop leads to steady-state errors in the PIM control system, which can be removed by modifying the plant model. The experimental results show that the performance of the PIM controller is better than the widely used Tustin controller at all the control rates tested; i.e., 50, 20 and 10Hz.

I. INTRODUCTION

miniature, planar, Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is constructed as a test-bed for experimental verification of the so called the Plant-Input-Mapping (PIM) digital redesign method. The PIM method is one of the digital redesign methods for converting an analog control system into a digital one. By taking into account the closed-loop characteristic of the analog control system in the form of the Plant-Input Transfer-Function (PITF), the PIM method can guarantee the stability for any non-pathological control rate, has good performances even for low control rates, and is applicable to a variety of analog control methods. The most popular Tustins method does not require a plant model, but requires a fast control rate, whereas the PIM method requires a plant model, but gives good performance with slow control rates. Since a control system with least processing resources is desired for small-sized UAVs, the PIM method is a good candidate for implementing digital control laws. The VTOL-UAV are expected to find applications in such activities as reconnaissance, surveillance, safety, fire fighting, and law-enforcement and a number of studies have appeared for controlling planar VTOL vehicles [1][3]. A real

VTOL-UAV is usually self-propelling, carrying its own propellant on board and these papers seem to be seeking this goal. The system considered here is a small-scale air-borne object whose propellant is the compressed air provided from the air-supply on the ground. The UAV will, therefore, have to drag air-tubes and must be controlled with robust performance. At the moment, the servo-valves are also located on the ground, making the air-path from the valve to the nozzle long. This increases the time-delay, making control system designs more difficult. Compared with a UAV with rotating-wings, the UAV with air-jets are more agile, making the controller design more demanding. The main goal of the present study is to prove that the basic PIM control law can be implemented on a DSP for roll angle control of the UAV. II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP A. Overall System Description Fig. 1 shows the overall functional blocks of the experimental set-up. It consists of the UAV, which carries sensors and nozzles on board, the control unit, which includes a DSP, ADCs, DACs, and a PC, the air supply unit, which includes an air compressor, a tank, a primary pressure-regulator, and servo-valve actuators. As shown in Fig. 2, the VTOL-UAV is attached at the tip of a parallel-arm link that restrains the motion of the UAV in a surface within a limited range, which can be considered quasi-planar. Matlab/Simulink is used for the analysis, synthesis, and simulation of various control systems. Once a control system is designed, it is converted into c-codes using Real-Time Workshop and then down loaded to the DSP. The DSP calculates an appropriate control signal to the servo actuator, which in turn controls the airflow to the nozzles.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The Control Unit VTOL-UAV
PC DSP Rate Gyroscope Sensor Nozzles

The control inputs that the controller generates are the voltage signals to the servo valves, which control the thrusts. For modeling purposes, u1 [volts] in Fig. 3 represents the translational, common-mode input and u2 [volts] represents the rotational, differential-mode input, to the UAV. Since only the roll angle is of concern in the present stage of the project, u1 is fixed to a constant. C. Analog Control System Shown in Fig. 4 is the analog PI-D control system that is used as a base for digital redesign, where r is the reference input.
r (t )

Air Compressor Primary PressureRegulator

Input Signals
Servo-Valves

The Air Supply Unit

The Actuator

Fig. 1. The functional blocks of the experimental set-up.

KP + KI / s

u2 ( t )

G ( s ) KD

(t )

1s

(t )

Fig. 4. The analog PI-D control system.

The parameters of the transfer function G ( s ) from the

Fig. 2. The VTOL-UAV attached at the top of a parallel-arm link.

B. VTOL-UAV Plant Fig. 3 shows the schematic of the VTOL-UAV, the system to be controlled. It has one nozzle at each end, pointing downward, through which the compressed air is released into the atmosphere. The thrust thus generated can create the translational force and rotational torque to actuate the UAV motion. An angular velocity sensor (rate gyroscope) is attached at the center of rotation and measures the roll angular velocity [deg/s].

input u2 to the angular velocity are identified from experimental data using the standard least-squares method in the shift operator form at 1kHz. The obtained transfer function is converted into one in Euler operator [4], which is defined as

z 1 T

(1)

u1
u2

Nozzel

Rate Gyroscope Sensor

where z is the usual zee operator and T is the sampling interval. The Euler operator is used here for better numerical properties in digital control implementation and ease of relating discrete-time results to continuous-time counterparts [4]. The reason for converting the transfer function in z into that in Euler is the following: Using the ADC and DAC, the plant model is that of the so-called Step-Invariant-Model [5], which has an added sampling zero. Although it is difficult to distinguish this zero from the plant itself using z, it is easy using the Euler form; the sampling zero can be removed by ignoring the terms that are unnecessary in the numerator [6]. Furthermore, as the sampling rate increases, the coefficients appearing in the transfer function expressed in Euler operator approach those corresponding coefficients in s [5]. The analog control system is designed based on the partial model-matching method [7]. For the second order plant of the form b0 , (2) G (s) = a0 + a1s + a2 s 2 the closed-loop characteristic polynomial is given by

Nozzle

Fig. 3. The schematic of the VTOL-UAV.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

1+

a0 + K P b0 a + K Db0 2 a s+ 1 s + 2 s3 . K I b0 K I b0 K I b0

(3)

M ( s)

u( s ) A( s )C ( s ) . = r ( s ) 1 + B( s )C ( s )G ( s )

(8)

This is set equal to the desired polynomial given by

0 + 1 ( s ) + 2 ( s ) + 3 ( s ) ,
2 3

(4)

where 0 = 1, 1 = 1, 2 = 3/ 8, 3 = 1/16 [8]. The time-scale parameter is determined experimentally to be = 0.8 . The controller parameters K P , K I , and K D are determined by equating (3) and (4), and fine-tuned experimentally to be

K P = 3.9 103 2 K I = 1.9 10 4 K D = 8.7 10 .

(5)

It is known [10] that, in general, the denominator of the PITF contains the closed-loop characteristic polynomial and the numerator contains the plant characteristic polynomial. Rather than discretize each of the analog controller blocks as in Tustins method, only the PITF is discretized in the PIM method. This is carried out using the Matched-Pole-Zero method [11] and the resulting discrete-time model becomes the target PITF. Once this discrete-time PITF is obtained, this must be realized in a closed-loop configuration, such as one shown in Fig. 6. First, the plant is discretized Step-Invariant-Model [5] and is expressed as using the

The PIM and Tustins digital control systems are designed to assimilate the performance of this analog control system. III. THE PIM METHOD A. The General PIM Design In this section, a general PIM design method [9] is reviewed briefly and applied later for the VTOL-UAV. Consider the analog control system represented in Fig. 5. Assume that the continuous-time plant is linear, time-invariant, and strictly proper, and is denoted as

G ( ) =

nG ( ) . d G ( )
nM ( )d G ( ) , d M ( )

(9)

The target PITF can be written, then, as

M * ( ) =

(10)

which contains the denominator of the Step-Invariant-Model of the plant. Choosing the discrete-time controller blocks [8] as

nG ( s) . G( s) = d G ( s)

(6)

A( ) =

nA ( ) n ( ) ( ) , B ( ) = B , C ( ) = ( ) ( ) dC ( )

(11)

Assume also that the analog control system is internally stable, satisfies all the design specifications, and is realized with proper transfer functions given as

the discrete-time control system can be implemented as shown in Fig. 6, where ( ) is an arbitrary, stable polynomial of appropriate degree [9]. The controller design is now reduced to the determination of nA ( ) , nB ( ) , and

A( s ) =

n A ( s) n B ( s) nC ( s) , B( s) = , C ( s) = d A ( s) d B ( s) d C ( s)

(7)

d C ( ) . The actual PITF of this control system is given by

M ( ) =
M ( s)
r (s)

nA ( )dG ( ) . nB ( ) nG ( ) + dC ( ) dG ( )

(12)

A( s)

C (s)

u ( s)

G(s)

y ( s)

In the above, nG ( ) and dG ( ) are known from of the plant (9). By equating the target and the actual PITF, it can be seen that the polynomial nA ( ) must be nM ( ) , whereas nB ( ) and

B( s )
Fig. 5. Continuous-time control system to be digitally redesigned.

d C ( ) must be determined by solving the following

Diophantine equation:

In the PIM method, both the closed-loop characteristics and plant information are used in the discretization process in the name of the Plant-Input-Transfer Function (PITF). The PITF is the transfer function from the reference input to the plant input and is given by

nB ( )nG ( ) + dC ( )dG ( ) = d M ( )

(13)

under appropriate degree conditions [9]. This can be solved using the eliminant matrix or a state space formulation [4,9].

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

M ( )
r (s)

r ( )

A( ) +

B ( )

u ( )

ZOH

u ( s)

G (s)

y (s)

C ( )

y ( )

overshoot approaching 20% with continuing oscillation for more than 4 seconds. The PIM response has about 8% steady-state error with a smaller oscillation than the Tustins during transients. At the 10Hz control rate, both the Tustin and PIM methods are unsatisfactory, since the Tustin controller induces violent oscillations and the PIM produces about 10% steady-state error
r (t )
u2 ( t )

Fig. 6. Discrete-time control system redesigned using the PIM method.

IV. EXPERIMENTS The following apply to all the experiments conducted in this study: The angular velocity is sampled at 100Hz and integrated numerically to obtain the roll angle. However, this information is taken into the controller at the same rate as the control rates (10, 20, and 50Hz). The analog controller is not physically built using the analog components, but rather implemented digitally with all controller parameters unchanged and run at the fast sampling rate of 1kHz. The common-mode input is fixed at u1 = 0.54 volts.

KP + KI / s

G ( s )

(t )

1s

(t )

KD

Fig. 7. The PIM roll-angle control system for the VTOL-UAV.

12 10 Roll Angle[deg] 8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (T=0.02) PIM (T=0.02) 4 6 Time[sec] 8 10

A. PIM Redesign of the Roll-Angle Control System Using the procedure explained earlier, with the sampling rate of 1kHz and the truncation of the sampling zero, the continuous-time transfer function from the voltage input u2 to the angular velocity

is obtained as (14)

Fig. 8(a). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 50Hz.

G ( s ) =

2792 s , s + 5.0765s + 13.99

12 10 Roll Angle[deg] 8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (=0.05) PIM (T=0.05) 4 6 Time[sec] 8 10

whose poles are located at s = 2.54 2.75 j . Simulation results obtained using the UAV model (14) and the controller shown in Fig.4 with parameters (5) confirm that the desired analog controller performance is indeed achieved. For this roll-angle control system, the PIM method can be applied by considering the VTOL-UAV including roll-rate feedback as the plant. The PITF to this plant is discretized using the Matched-Pole-Zero method and realized in closed-form as the discrete-time roll-angle control system shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 8 (a)-(c) show the experimental results obtained using the control rates of 50Hz, 20Hz, and 10Hz, respectively. The reference input is the step signal occurring at t=1.0 second with the amplitude of 10 degrees. It can be seen from these plots that at the control rate of 50Hz, the performances of Tustin and PIM controllers are close to the analog controller, although there is a small steady-state error with the PIM controller. At the 20Hz rate, the Tustins design has the

Fig. 8(b). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 20Hz.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

12 10 Roll Angle[deg] Roll Angle[deg] 8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (T=0.1) PIM (T=0.1) 4 6 8 Time[sec]

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 10 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (T=0.02) PIM (T=0.02) 4 6 Time[sec] 8 10

Fig. 8(c). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 10Hz.

Fig. 9(a). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 50Hz.

B. Modification of the Plant Model Since the performance of the PIM controller was not as good as expected, the plant model was modified and the controller was recalculated. The resulting controller was evaluated experimentally, until a good transient response with no steady-state error is obtained. This modification is carried out basically by trials and errors, but is easier to do using the knowledge on the plant dynamics than adjusting the controller parameters directly. The parameters appearing in this model are not so sensitive to the overall performance and can be ballpark figures. It is found that fine-tuning of the plant model is easy to perform, with the low frequency gain adjustment being the most important. One such model obtained in this manner is given by

12 10 Roll Angle[deg] 8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (T=0.05) PIM (T=0.05) 4 6 Time[sec] 8 10

G ( s ) =

3800s s + 0.7 s + 12.5

2

(15)

Fig. 9(b). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 20Hz.

whose poles are at s = 0.35 3.52 j . Fig. 9 (a)-(c) show the response of the roll-angle to the step reference-angle change from 0 to 10 degrees occurring at about 1 second. At the control rate of 50Hz, the PIM controller performs very well and indistinguishable from the analog control response, with the overshoot of about 5% and the settling time about 2 seconds. At the 20Hz rate, the response with the PIM method has little oscillation, has no significant overshoot, and settles faster than the analog controller in this case, which is not intended. At the control rate of 10Hz, while the Tustins case is unacceptable, the PIM response is still respectable. Although the PIM response has a steady-state oscillation with around 0.5-degree peak-to-peak amplitude, they are not really noticeable visually.

12 10 Roll Angle[deg] 8 6 4 2 0 -2 0 2 Analog (T=0.001) Tustin (T=0.1) PIM (T=0.1) 4 6 8 Time[sec]

10

Fig. 9(c). Roll-angle response to 10-degree step reference change at the control rate of 10Hz.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Automation, December 15-18, 2005, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

V. CONCLUSION A quasi-planar VTOL-UAV was constructed and a PIM digital control system designed and tested to assimilate the analog control system, which was designed base on a partial model matching method. When the plant model that is identified in open loop was used, there was a steady-state error using the PIM controller. This error increased as the control rate was reduced but could be removed by modifying the plant model. Fine-tuning of the plant model is easy to perform, with the low frequency gain adjustment being the most effective. Further investigation into this aspect is desired. There are possibly two reasons for the occurrence of this error. One is that the standard PIM design takes into account only the PITF from the reference input to the plant input. Since there are disturbances, such as those due to air tubes, the transfer function from the disturbance to the plant input should also be considered [12]. The other is the nonlinearity that is ignored in the plant modeling using the sampled input-output data. The discretization of such a nonlinear system should be investigated and exact discretization [13] may pave the way to overcoming this issue. Since the roll-angle controller has a satisfactory performance, it will be combined with other controls, such as altitude control, to carry out experiments in planar motions in the next phase of the project. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The work presented in this paper was supported by JSPS grant #17560202. REFERENCES
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