Time-optimal control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles with human control input
International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics
ISSN: 1756-378X
Article publication date: 8 January 2019
Issue publication date: 22 February 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate time-optimal control problems for multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems to achieve predefined flying shape.
Design/methodology/approach
Two time-optimal protocols are proposed for the situations with or without human control input, respectively. Then, Pontryagin’s minimum principle approach is applied to deal with the time-optimal control problems for UAV systems, where the cost function, the initial and terminal conditions are given in advance. Moreover, necessary conditions are derived to ensure that the given performance index is optimal.
Findings
The effectiveness of the obtained time-optimal control protocols is verified by two contrastive numerical simulation examples. Consequently, the proposed protocols can successfully achieve the prescribed flying shape.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a solution to solve the time-optimal control problems for multiple UAV systems to achieve predefined flying shape.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 61602163 and 61471163, the Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Hubei Province under Grant No. 2017CFA034, the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province under 2016CFC735. The Hubei Education Department Science and Technology Research Program for young talents under Grant No. Q20182503.
Citation
Han, T., Xiao, B., Zhan, X.-S., Wu, J. and Gao, H. (2019), "Time-optimal control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles with human control input", International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 138-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJICC-04-2018-0050
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited