Optimized Model Predictive Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Sensor Uncertainties

Abstract

In this paper, a novel control strategy based on model predictive control is proposed for tracking the trajectory of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). First, the dynamic model of an unmanned aerial vehicle UAV is established by considering the linear velocities in terms of the analyzed system’s attitude angles. The UAV’s dynamic model is suitable for kinematic control by using two attitude angles as control inputs. The controller design is made up of an output feedback controller formed by the error variables, which are the difference between the measured output and the reference variables. Then, a model predictive control is established by considering an optimization problem with a performance index and the corresponding constraints. Furthermore, the stochastic properties of the UAV dynamic model are taken into account in this research study. The measured outputs provided by the sensors are constrained by the topological characteristics of the unmanned aerial vehicle to be analyzed. Finally, a numerical experiment and its conclusions are presented, demonstrating that the proposed control strategy provides optimal trajectory tracking.