Neural Incremental Dynamic Inversion Control of a Multirotor Robotic Airship

This paper proposes a new type of incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI) controller whose model-based component, the inverse of the control effectiveness matrix, is provided by a NARX recursive neural network. The resulting controller, called neural INDI (NINDI), acts typically as a usual INDI controller, with the advantage that the parameters of the effectiveness matrix do not need to be previously measured or estimated, which enables its use in real experimental applications. We present simulation results, comparing INDI (with nominal parameters) and NINDI for the path following of a multirotor robotic airship with differential propulsion, showing enhanced performance and robustness of the proposed solution, especially at low airspeeds.