Masanobu Nagata

Wind Estimation by Unmanned Air Vehicle with Delta Wing

In this paper, an algorithm to estimate wind direction by using a small and light Unmanned Air Vehicle(UAV) called KITEPLANE was proposed. KITEPLANE had a big main wing which is a kite-like delta shape and, therefore, it was easy to be disturbed by wind. However, this disadvantage implies that the KITEPLANE has an ability to sense wind and that it is expected to use the KITEPLANE as a sensor for wind estimation. In order to achieve this feature, dynamics of the KITEPLANE under wind disturbance were derived and a numerical estimation method was proposed. Devices equipped on board were also developed and the proposed method was implemented. Results of an experiment showed the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Autopilot System for Kiteplane

This paper proposes an autopilot system for a small and light unmanned air vehicle called Kiteplane. The Kiteplane has a large delta-shaped main wing that is easily disturbed by the wind, which was minimized by utilizing trim flight with drift. The proposed control system for autonomous trajectory following with a wind disturbance included fuzzy logic controllers, a speed controller, a wind disturbance attenuation block, and low-level feedback controllers. The system was implemented onboard the aircraft. Experiments were performed to test the performance of the proposed system and the Kiteplane nearly succeeded in following the desired trajectory, under the wind disturbance. Although the path was not followed perfectly, the airplane was able to traverse the waypoints by utilizing a failsafe waypoint updating rule

Flight path control of small unmanned air vehicle

In this paper, a path following control system for a small and light unmanned air vehicle (UAV), called Kiteplane, was proposed. The aircraft contains a large delta-shaped main wing and exhibits stable flying dynamics. Because of this feature, a simple proportional integral differential control method could be implemented since attitude control to stabilize the motion was not needed. Devices installed on board the aircraft were developed for the autopilot system and the proposed control method was implemented. Results of numerical simulations and experiments showed the effectiveness of the approach. This paper also provides an algorithm for using the aircraft to estimate wind direction based on Kiteplane dynamics under the wind effect. A numerical estimation method was proposed and it was implemented on the autopilot system. The experimental results also supported the proposed wind estimating method.

The application of a PID parameter tuning method based on model matching on frequency domain for printer ink-head speed control

Nowadays, control technologies are used in many fields, such as industrial plants, industrial robots, home electronics, cars, etc. Many control methods, like the robust control, the optimal control, and the fuzzy control, etc, are proposed. However, a PID controller is used about 90% of the time as the control method. The ink-head of an ink-jet printer which is widely used at home is controlled by the PID controller. However, PID control parameters have to be readjusted when the dynamic characteristics of the printer are changed for each target, because PID controller parameters are adjusted by trial and error technique. Thus the tuning task requires a lot of time and is a tedious job. In this paper, a tuning method based on model matching on frequency domain is applied to determine PID controller parameters for the ink-head speed control of a printer, and experiments with an actual printer are implemented.

Construction of 2-DOF Pneumatic Actuator based 14-DOF Pneumatic Dual Manipulators and its Experimental Evaluation by Ball Handling Control.

Robots utilized in the field of welfare or agriculture should be light in weight and flexible in structure. A pneumatic actuator has properties such that it is more powerful compared with a motor of same weight, and that it is flexible, clean and unexplosive. In this paper we propose a new structure of the pneumatic actuator with two-degree-of-freedom. By using proposed pneumatic actuators, we can easily construct multi-degree-of-freedom pneumatic manipulators. Here we constructed a fourteen-degree-of-freedom pneumatic dual manipulator. The performance of the dual manipulators is confirmed through experiments for ball-handling with impedance control. In the experiments several control schemes, including decentralized and decoupling controls, were used. The results show that a flexibility of the pneumatic actuator is appropriate to accomplish the coordinative motion of the right and left arms of the robot.

Adaptive sliding mode control using parallel feedforward compensator

Abstract In this paper, the adaptive model following sliding mode controller design method is considered. According to this method, we can maintain a stability of closed-loop system by the eventual sliding mode control term with a switching signal generated by the addition of controlled plant output and the parallel feedforward dynamic compensator output, and can realize a output following for a reference model based on CGT (Command Generator Tracker) approach. The control performance of the proposed method is confirmed through a numerical simulation.