Controller for UAV to Oppose Different Kinds of Wind in the Environment

Abstract

Small UAVs are susceptible to the external disturbance, especially the wind field disturbance in the atmosphere environment. As a result, UAV’s states including attitude, speed, and position are usually unable to track the desired control commands. In this paper, different types of wind fields which easily affect the UAV are summarized; furthermore, the mechanism of their wind fields affecting the UAV is first strictly analyzed. Next, a novel “reject external disturbance” flight mode for UAV is put forward to offset the trajectory deviation caused by side wind, which makes use of the wind speed information obtained by airspeed and ground speed of UAV. In order to implement the “reject external disturbance” flight mode, the Lyapunov stability theory-based variable model reference adaptive control (VMRAC) system is proposed, and it could also deal with the adverse effects of wind shear and turbulence on UAV flight. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed strategy can significantly improve the trajectory following quality of the UAV under wind disturbance.