In this thesis novel feedback attitude control algorithms and attitude estimation algorithms are developed for a three-axis stabilised spacecraft attitude control system. The spacecraft models considered include a rigid-body spacecraft equipped with (i) external control torque devices, and (ii) a redundant reaction wheel configuration. The attitude sensor suite comprises a three-axis magnetometer and three-axis rate gyroscope assembly. The quaternion parameters (also called Euler symmetric parameters), which globally avoid singularities but are subject to a unity-norm constraint, are selected as the primary attitude coordinates. There are four novel contributions presented in this thesis. The first novel contribution is the development of a robust control strategy for spacecraft attitude tracking maneuvers, in the presence of dynamic model uncertainty in the spacecraft inertia matrix, actuator magnitude constraints, bounded persistent external disturbances, and state estimation error. The novel component of this algorithm is the incorporation of state estimation error into the stability analysis. The proposed control law contains a parameter which is dynamically adjusted to ensure global asymptotic stability of the overall closedloop system, in the presence of these specific system non-idealities. A stability proof is presented which is based on Lyapunov's direct method, in conjunction with Barbalat's lemma. The control design approach also ensures minimum angular path maneuvers, since the attitude quaternion parameters are not unique. The second novel contribution is the development of a robust direct adaptive control strategy for spacecraft attitude tracking maneuvers, in the presence of dynamic model uncertainty in the spacecraft inertia matrix. The novel aspect of this algorithm is the incorporation of a composite parameter update strategy, which ensures global exponential convergence of the closed-loop system. A stability proof is presented which is based on Lyapunov's direct method, in conjunction with Barbalat's lemma. The exponential convergence results provided by this control strategy require persistently exciting reference trajectory commands. The control design approach also ensures minimum angular path maneuvers. The third novel contribution is the development of an optimal control strategy for spacecraft attitude maneuvers, based on a rigid body spacecraft model including a redundant reaction wheel assembly. The novel component of this strategy is the proposal of a performance index which represents the total electrical energy consumed by the reaction wheel over the maneuver interval. Pontraygin's minimum principle is applied to formulate the necessary conditions for optimality, in which the control torques are subject to timevarying magnitude constraints. The presence of singular sub-arcs in the statespace and their associated singular controls are investigated using Kelley's necessary condition. The two-point boundary-value problem (TPBVP) is formulated using Pontrayagin's minimum principle. The fourth novel contribution is an attitude estimation algorithm which estimates the spacecraft attitude parameters and sensor bias parameters from three-axis magnetometer and three-axis rate gyroscope measurement data. The novel aspect of this algorithm is the assumption that the state filtering probability density function (PDF) is Gaussian distributed. This Gaussian PDF assumption is also applied to the magnetometer measurement model. Propagation of the filtering PDF between sensor measurements is performed using the Fokker-Planck equation, and Bayes theorem incorporates measurement update information. The use of direction cosine matrix elements as the attitude coordinates avoids any singularity issues associated with the measurement update and estimation error covariance representation.

Dans ce travail de thèse on s’intéresse à l’estimation de l’attitude d’un corps rigideen mouvement dans l’espace 3D en utilisant les quaternions comme représentation. Cetteproblématique a été largement étudiée dans la littérature sous divers domaines d’application.L’objectif de la thèse est de proposer de nouvelles méthodes de fusion de données en combinantdes mesures inertielles et magnétiques. Dans un premier temps, nous nous sommesintéressés à l’estimation de l’attitude en cas de mouvement accéléré où l’accélération linéairedu corps n’est plus négligeable devant la gravité. Deux approches ont été proposées dans cecadre. La première utilise un filtre de Kalman adaptatif pour la compensation des accélérationslinéaires. Précisément, des lois de détection ont été développées pour distinguer d’unefaçon automatique les différentes phases de mouvement (statiques et dynamiques). Ainsi, lamatrice de covariance associée à l’accélération linéaire est estimée afin d’ajuster le gain dufiltre. La deuxième approche consiste à intégrer un filtre singulier élaboré sur la base d’unnouveau modèle, dans lequel le modèle du processus est défini en se basant sur les mesuresissues de l’accéléromètre tandis que le modèle d’observation est défini par les mesures issuesdu gyromètres et du magnétomètres. Cette formulation permet de prendre en compte l’effetdes accélérations linéaires d’une manière efficace. Dans un deuxième temps, on s’est focalisésur l’estimation de l’attitude avec utilisation intermittente de gyromètres, considérés commecapteurs énergivores. Nous avons étudié dans ce cas la façon la plus adéquate afin de réduirel’acquisition des mesures de vitesse angulaire tout en gardant une qualité acceptable de l’estimationde l’attitude. Toutes les approches développées ont été validées par des simulationsnumériques ainsi que des expérimentations utilisant des données réelles. / In this PhD. thesis we deal with attitude estimation of accelerated rigid body moving in the 3D space using quaternion parameterization. This problem has been widely studied in the literature in various application areas. The main objective of the thesis is to propose new methods for data fusion to combine inertial gyros) and magnetic measurements. The first challenge concerns the attitude estimation during dynamic cases, in which external acceleration of the body is not negligible compared to the Gravity. Two main approaches are proposed in this context. Firstly, a quatenion-based adaptive Kalman filter (q-AKF) was designed in order to compensate for such external acceleration. Precisely, a smart detector is designed to decide whether the body is in static or dynamic case. Then, the covariance matrix of the external acceleration is estimated to tune the filter gain. Second, we developed descriptor filter based on a new formulation of the dynamic model where the process model is fed by accelerometer measurements while observation model is fed by gyros and magnetometer measurements. Such modeling gives rise to a descriptor system. The resulting model allows taking the external acceleration of the body into account in a very efficient way. The second challenge is related to the energy consumption issue of gyroscope, considered as the most power consuming sensor. We study the way to reduce the gyro measurements acquisition by switching on/off the sensor while maintaining an acceptable attitude estimation. The effciency of the proposed methods is evaluated by means of numerical simulations and experimental tests.

L'estimation de l'attitude (ou orientation) est un problème récurrent de nombreuses applications allant de la robotique aérienne ou sous-marine en passant par des applications médicales (surveillance de patients, réhabilitation), mais aussi jeux vidéo, etc. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'évaluer l'apport des approches ensemblistes dans le cadre de l'estimation de l'attitude à partir de données issues de triaxes accéléromètres (A), magnétomètres (M) et gyromètres (G). Dans un premier temps, on s'intéresse aux mouvements "quasi-statiques" et l'estimation de l'attitude est réalisée à partir de mesures AM. On aborde ensuite le cas des mouvements dynamiques, en considérant l'ensemble des mesures AGM. Le problème du choix de la paramétrisation de l'attitude a été abordé et on a comparé les résultats obtenus et le temps calcul pour des modélisations avec les angles de Cardan et le quaternion unitaire. Les algorithmes développés ont été validés en simulation et avec des données réelles. Les résultats ont été comparés avec ceux fournis par des algorithmes de l'état de l'art, par exemple SIVIA. La deuxième partie du manuscrit est consacrée à au diagnostic des capteurs de la centrale inertielle avec des approches ensemblistes. Les algorithmes développés dans la première partie du travail sont adaptés afin de pouvoir détecter et localiser un défaut dans l'ensemble des capteurs considérés. / Attitude estimation is one of the prominent problem encountered in various application areas such as Aerial and submarine robotics, bio-medical applications (elderly people monitoring, rehabilitation) but also, video game and augmented reality. The main objective of this PhD is to assess the capabilities of set-membership estimation in the field of attitude estimation when triaxes accelerometer (A) magnetometer (M) and rate gyros (G) are used. Quasi-static movements are first considered. In this case AM measurements are taken into account. Then the dynamic case is considered with AGM measurement taken into account in the set-membership estimation algorithm. The problem of attitude parametrisation is also studied as it will have a strong in uence on the computational time. The algorithms proposed during this work have been validated with simulated and real data. The second part of the report deals with Fault Detection and Isolation based upon set-membership approaches. The algorithms that have been developed in the first part of this work have been adapted to cope with diagnosis of a faulty sensor within the Inertial Measurement Unit.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:55:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArmandoSS_TESE.pdf: 2110397 bytes, checksum: c6ade2a7219938325c34c1856e93d29f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-01 / In this Thesis, the development of the dynamic model of multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle with vertical takeoff and landing characteristics, considering input nonlinearities and a full state robust backstepping controller are presented. The dynamic model is expressed using the Newton-Euler laws, aiming to obtain a better mathematical representation of the mechanical system for system analysis and control design, not only when it is hovering, but also when it is taking-off, or landing, or flying to perform a task. The input nonlinearities are the deadzone and saturation, where the gravitational effect and the inherent physical constrains of the rotors are related and addressed. The experimental multirotor aerial vehicle is equipped with an inertial measurement unit and a sonar sensor, which appropriately provides measurements of attitude and altitude. A real-time attitude estimation scheme based on the extended Kalman filter using quaternions was developed. Then, for robustness analysis, sensors were modeled as the ideal value with addition of an unknown bias and unknown white noise. The bounded robust attitude/altitude controller were derived based on globally uniformly practically asymptotically stable for real systems, that remains globally uniformly asymptotically stable if and only if their solutions are globally uniformly bounded, dealing with convergence and stability into a ball of the state space with non-null radius, under some assumptions. The Lyapunov analysis technique was used to prove the stability of the closed-loop system, compute bounds on control gains and guaranteeing desired bounds on attitude dynamics tracking errors in the presence of measurement disturbances. The controller laws were tested in numerical simulations and in an experimental hexarotor, developed at the UFRN Robotics Laboratory / Nesta Tese, s?o apresentados os desenvolvimentos da modelagem din?mica de um ve?culo a?reo n?o tripulado multirrotor com capacidade de decolagem e pouso vertical, considerando as n?o linearidades de entrada e o desenvolvimento de um controlador robusto por backstepping. A formula??o do modelo din?mico ? expressa usando-se as leis de Newton-Euler, visando ? obten??o de uma melhor representa??o matem?tica do sistema mec?nico para a an?lise e projeto das leis de controle, n?o apenas quando est? pairando, como tamb?m de decolagem, de pouso, ou de voo executando uma tarefa. As n?o linearidades de entrada s?o a zona morta e a satura??o, onde o efeito gravitacional e as inerentes restri??es f?sicas dos rotores s?o relacionadas e abordadas. O microve?culo experimental est? equipado com uma unidade de medida inercial e um sonar, que devidamente instrumentada fornece as medidas da atitude e altitude. Foi desenvolvido um estimador em tempo real para atitude usando quat?rnios e baseado em filtro de Kalman estendido. Para a formula??o robusta do controlador, os sensores foram modelados como o valor real, que ? o valor ideal com a adi??o de um vi?s e mais um ru?do branco desconhecidos e limitados. Os controladores de atitude e altitude foram derivados usando-se o crit?rio globalmente uniformemente praticamente assintoticamente est?vel para sistemas reais, que permanece globalmente uniformemente assintoticamente est?vel se e somente se suas solu??es s?o globalmente uniformemente limitadas, lidando com a converg?ncia e estabilidade dentro de uma regi?o com raio n?o nula, levando em considera??o algumas suposi??es como as incertezas nas medi??es. A t?cnica de an?lise de Lyapunov foi usada para: provar a estabilidade do sistema em malha fechada; calcular os limites dos ganhos de controle, e, obter a garantia limitada pretendida sobre o erro de rastreamento da din?mica de atitude na presen?a de dist?rbios nas medi??oes. As leis de controle foram testadas em simula??es num?ricas e em um hexarrotor experimental, desenvolvido no Laborat?rio de Rob?tica da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

This thesis presents the design of an autopilot capable of flying small unmanned aerial vehicles with wingspans less then 21 inches. The autopilot is extremely small and lightweight allowing it to fit in aircraft of this size. The autopilot features an advanced, highly autonomous flight control system with auto-launch and auto-landing algorithms. These features allow the autopilot to be operated by a wide spectrum of skilled and unskilled users. Innovative control techniques implemented in software, coupled with light weight, robust, and inexpensive hardware components were used in the design of the autopilot.

No description available.

<p dir="ltr">Tracking and characterizing the space debris population in Earth orbit is necessary to ensure that space can continue to be used safely. However, because space objects are affected by non-conservative forces like drag and solar radiation pressure, predicting the long-term evolution of their orbits is impossible without knowledge of their attitude profiles. Such knowledge may be unavailable for inactive satellites or objects of which the observer is not the owner or operator. In many cases, attitude cannot be measured directly because resolved images of space objects are unavailable due to the distance between the object and the observer, and the effects of atmospheric seeing. However, the total brightness of objects can still be measured. A set of brightness measurements over time is referred to as a "light curve.'' An object's observed brightness is influenced by its attitude and other factors such as its orbit, shape, and reflective properties. If some of these other factors are known, attitude information may be extracted from a light curve. Existing methods of solving this attitude inversion problem either require a good initial guess for an object's rotational states or do not provide a full state estimate. The work in this thesis avoids both problems and provides a full state estimate without requiring an initial state guess.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">The attitude estimation process assumes that the observation geometry and the observed object's shape, reflection properties, and inertia tensor are known. In this thesis, an initial method of searching for attitudes that could correspond to each measurement using the viewing sphere is described. These possible attitudes or "pseudo-measurements'' are then used to initialize a probability hypothesis density filter that is theoretically capable of representing the multi-modal nature of the attitude estimate using a Gaussian mixture model. However, the probability hypothesis density filter is found to often diverge from the truth because it is necessary to merge and prune components of the Gaussian mixture model to avoid computational intractability. In its place, a particle swarm optimizer method for performing an attitude inversion has been developed. This method uses analytic attitude solutions to quickly propagate a large number of attitude time histories simultaneously. The particle swarm optimizer method is validated using simulated light curves for several objects. A preliminary attempt is made to estimate the attitude of an object using real light curve measurements.</p>

[pt] Quadrirrotores são veículos aéreos que possuem quatro rotores fixos e orientados na direção vertical. Devido à sua simplicidade mecânica frente aos helicópteros tradicionais, os mesmos têm se tornado cada vez mais populares nos meios de pesquisa, militares e, mais recentemente, industriais. Essa topologia de veículo data do início do século XX mas o desenvolvimento em escala só foi possível após a recente evolução e miniaturização dos sistemas eletrônicos embarcados, dos motores elétricos e das baterias. A movimentação desses veículos no espaço é possível graças à sua inclinação em relação ao solo e, para tal, é imprescindível obter e controlar corretamente a atitude do mesmo. As unidades de medidas inerciais (IMU) surgiram como uma solução para esse problema. Através da fusão dos dados obtidos com os sensores presentes nessas centrais (acelerômetros, girômetros e magnetômetro) é possível estimar a atitude do veículo. O presente trabalho apresenta soluções tanto para a estimativa quanto para o controle de atitude de quadrirrotor. Os modelos matemáticos desenvolvidos são validados em simulações numéricas e em testes experimentais. O objetivo é que as soluções propostas apresentem resultados positivos para que possam ser empregadas nos quadrirrotores em escala. / [en] Quadrotors are vehicles that have four fixed rotors in the vertical direction. Due to its mechanical simplicity compared to traditional helicopters, these vehicles have become increasingly popular in the research, military and, more recently, industrial fields. This type of vehicle first appeared in the early twentieth century, but the development of small-scale models was only possible after the recent evolution and miniaturization of embedded electronics, electric motors and batteries. A Quadrotor can fly in any direction by changing its inclination relative to the ground, so it is essential to calculate and properly adjust its attitude. The inertial measurement units (IMU) emerged as one solution to this problem. By merging the IMU sensors data, it is possible to estimate the vehicle s attitude. This dissertation presents solutions for both the estimation and the control of the vehicle s attitude. The developed mathematical models are validated with numerical simulations and experimental tests. The goal is that the presented solutions give enough good results so they can be used in small-scale Quadrotors.

L'identification passive d'un système réside dans l'estimation des paramètres qui décrivent ce système uniquement à l'aide de sollicitations ambiantes. Dans le génie civil, cette discipline est appliquée pour le suivi de l'état de santé des structures, on parle de SHM (Structural Health Monitoring) passif. Le SHM passif est généralement réalisé à l'aide d'une instrumentation déployée en surface. La thèse s'est intéressée aux possibilités offertes par une instrumentation qui serait enfouie. Dans une première partie, on établit les résultats associés à l'identification passive des milieux visco-élastiques. L'originalité de ces travaux réside dans la prise en compte d'un modèle de dissipation réaliste, la viscosité, ainsi que du caractère vectoriel des ondes élastiques. Ces résultats théoriques sont validés expérimentalement et démontrent la portabilité du SHM passif en surface au SHM passif en volume. Dans une deuxième partie, on s'intéresse à deux problèmes attachés à l'enfouissement de capteurs: l'estimation passive de leur position (problème SNL, Sensor Network Location problem) et de leur attitude (problème SNA, Sensor Network Attitude problem). Ces problèmes sont résolus grâce à l'identification passive qui fournit, en plus d'information physique sur le milieu, des informations géométriques sur le réseau. En particulier, on peut estimer des distances et des attitudes relatives entre capteurs. A l'aide de ces informations partielles et bruitées, des algorithmes de résolution des problèmes SNL et SNA ont été développés puis validés expérimentalement. Enfin, on synthétise l'apport de la thèse et on identifie les verrous technologiques à lever afin de justifier la faisabilité de l'enfouissement d'un réseau de capteurs dans le but de faire du SHM passif. / Passive identification of a system relies on the estimation of the parameters which describe that system only by using ambient sources. In civil engineering, we can apply this technique to monitor the state of health of structures. This is called passive SHM (Structural Health Monitoring). Passive SHM is generally realised by using an instrumentation distributed on the surface. This thesis focuses on the possibility given by the use of an embedded instrumentation.In the first part, we establish new results associated to passive identification in visco-elastic media. The originality of this work relies on the consideration of a realistic dissipation model, the viscosity, and the vectorial aspect of elastic waves. Those theoretical results, which are experimentally validated, prove the portability of surface passive SHM to volume passive SHM. In the second part, we focus on two problems related to an embedded sensors network: the passive estimation of sensors position (SNL problem - Sensor Network Location problem) and attitude (SNA problem - Sensor Network Attitude problem). Those problems are solved by using passive identification which gives, besides physical information on the medium, geometrical information on the network. In particular, we can estimate the distances and relative attitudes between sensors. With that partial and noisy information we have developed algorithms solving SNL and SNA problems and we have validated them experimentally.At last, we synthesize the contribution of the thesis and we identify the technological locks to release in order to justify the feasibility of passive SHM using an embedded instrumentation.

Les insectes sont capables de prouesses remarquables lorsqu’il s’agit d’éviter des obstacles,voler en environnement perturbé ou poursuivre une cible. Cela laisse penser que leurs capacités de traitement, aussi minimalistes soient-elles, sont parfaitement optimisées pour le vol. A cela s’ajoute des mécanismes raffinés, comme la stabilisation de la vision par rapport au corps, permettant d’améliorer encore plus leurs capacités de vol.Ces travaux de thèse présentent l’élaboration d’un micro drone de type quadrirotor, qui ressemble fortement à un insecte sur le plan perceptif (vibration rétinienne) et reprend des points structurels clés, tels que le découplage mécanique entre le corps et le système visuel. La conception du quadrirotor (de type open-source), son pilotage automatique et son système occulo-moteur sont minutieusement détaillés.Des traitements adaptés permettent, malgré un très faible nombre de pixels (24 pixels seulement), de poursuivre finement du regard une cible en mouvement. A partir de là, nous avons élaboré des stratégies basées sur le pilotage par le regard, pour stabiliser le robot en vol stationnaire, à l’aplomb d’une cible et asservir sa position ; et ce, en se passant d’une partie des capteurs habituellement utilisés en aéronautique tels que les magnétomètres et les accéléromètres. Le quadrirotor décolle, se déplace et atterrit de façon autonome en utilisant seulement ses gyromètres, son système visuel original mimant l’oeil d’un insecte et une mesure de son altitude. Toutes les expérimentations ont été validées dans une arène de vol, équipée de caméras VICON.Enfin, nous décrivons une nouvelle toolbox qui permet d’exécuter en temps réel des modèles Matlab/Simulink sur des calculateurs Linux embarqués de façon complètement automatisée (http://www.gipsalab.fr/projet/RT-MaG/). Cette solution permet d’écrire les modèles, de les simuler, d’élaborer des lois de contrôle pour enfin, piloter en temps réel, le robot sous l’environnement Simulink. Cela réduit considérablement le "time-to-flight" et offre une grande flexibilité (possibilité de superviser l’ensemble des données de vol, de modifier en temps réel les paramètres des contrôleurs, etc.). / Insects, like hoverflies are able of outstanding performances to avoid obstacles, reject disturbances and hover or track a target with great accuracy. These means that fast sensory motor reflexes are at work, even if they are minimalist, they are perfectly optimized for the flapping flight at insect scale. Additional refined mechanisms, like gaze stabilization relative to the body, allow to increase their flight capacity.In this PhD thesis, we present the design of a quadrotor, which is highly similar to an insect in terms of perception (visual system) and implements a bio-inspired gaze control system through the mechanical decoupling between the body and the visual system. The design of the quadrotor (open-source), itspilot and its decoupled eye are thoroughly detailed. New visual processing algorithms make it possible to faithfully track a moving target, in spite of a very limited number of pixels (only 24 pixels). Using this efficient gaze stabilization, we developed new strategies to stabilize the robot above a target and finely control its position relative to the target. These new strategies do not need classical aeronautic sensors like accelerometers and magnetometers. As a result, the quadrotor is able to take off, move and land automatically using only its embedded rate-gyros, its insect-like eye, and an altitude measurement. All these experiments were validated in a flying arena equipped with a VICON system. Finally, we describe a new toolbox, called RT-MaG toolbox, which generate automatically a real-time standalone application for Linux systems from a Matlab/Simulink model (http://www.gipsalab.fr/projet/RT-MaG/). These make it possible to simulate, design control laws and monitor the robot’s flight in real-time using only Matlab/Simulink. As a result, the "time-to-flight" is considerably reduced and the final application is highly reconfigurable (real-time monitoring, parameter tuning, etc.).