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Landing unmanned VTOL systems Issues in control
and navigation AEROSPACE CONTROL AND GUIDANCE
SYSTEMS COMMITTEE

• Eric Feron
• Dutton/Ducoffe Professor
• School of Aerospace Engineering
• Georgia Institute of Technology

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Outline

• High Agility Flight
• New local positioning sensor for landing
• Obstacle-sensitive flight controls

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Aerobatic Helicopter
HILSim
Ground Station
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High agility flight
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Concept A helicopter Carrier forFirefighting/Law
Enforcement
0.55m
Cab
0.5m
Target
2.4m
Forward Configuration, side view
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Managing the interfaceAutomated landing

• Requirements
• Repeatable landings in demanding areas
• No GPS system upon final approach
• Sensing issues
• Actuation issues

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x
y
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Sensing Solution via Moire Pattern
Gratings
Light source
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Demo
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Current System
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Vertical Wall Landing
H height
Wall
X - Travel

• Conservative Landing Approach will not work.
• We will assume we are given a feasible reference
  trajectory

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3 DOF helicopter
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More attempts
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Bottom line

• We get a gain-scheduled family of
  obstacle-sensitive trajectory trackers in one
  shot.
• Allows us to change what output we care most
  about in real-time, and schedule controllers
  accordingly.
• Controllers come with built-in closed-loop
  stability guarantees.
• Controller structure may vary quickly.

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Example Longitudinal motion of helicopter
Reference trajectory
Obstacle
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The end feron_at_gatech.edu