May 23rd, 2013, 2-3PM @ MESA LAB, Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab,4225 N. Hospital Rd., Atwater, CA 95301. T:209-2284398
Contact: Professor YangQuan Chen, Email: yqchen@ieee.org
Title:
Battery Model-Based Thrust Controller for a Small, Low Cost Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Speaker:
Michal Podhradsky, CSOIS, Dept. of ECE, Utah State University
Abstract:
Small Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are typically driven by Li-Po batteries. These batteries have their own dynamics, which changes during discharge. Classical approaches to attitude/altitude control assume time-invariant system, and might not provide acceptable performance. Adaptive controllers require an identified system model which is often unavailable. Battery dynamics can be characterized and used for a battery model based controller. This controller is useful in situations where no feedback from actuators (such as RPM) is available. It is shown that if battery dynamics is measured and a pure gain controller designed, it shown a consistent performance during whole discharge test. This method is cheap and fast to implement, which is important for Low Cost UAVs.
Biography:
Michal Podhradsky is a research assistant at Utah State University. He works for AggieAir Flying Circus under Utah Water Research Laboratory, developing Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAVs for Personal Remote Sensing. He received his master's degree in Electrical & Control Engineering from Czech Technical University, Czech Republic and MSc. with Major in Space Technology from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
