Soichiro Watanabe

L1Adaptive Control for a Single Coaxial Rotor MAV

This paper investigates the application of L1 adaptive augmentation to the experimental flight of a Single Coaxial Rotor (SCR) Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) conducted in the indoor flight facility of the National Defense Academy (NDA) of Japan. In this work, L1 adaptive controller parameters are determined by the use of multi-objective optimization. The adaptive controller is applied to the translational motion control while performing an experimental flight including heave motion, hovering, and hover-to-hover maneuvers to evaluate the controller. The results provide precise tracking performance and validate the feasibility of the adaptive controller.

Stability Augmentation for Rotor MAV Takeoff and Landing using a Meshed Platform

This paper investigates the application of the meshed platform to reduce the influence of ground effect during take-off and landing of a Single Coaxial Rotor (SCR) Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). Although the influence of downwash reflection from the landing platform surface decreases the required power for the hovering flight, the disturbed airflow can decrease the MAV’s stability. To reduce this effect, a meshed surface for the landing platform allows the downwash to continue its downward flow without causing as much turbulence. The meshed platform also helps avoid the sudden flow change around the edge of the platform. The utility of the proposed idea is verified by the experimental take-off, hovering and landing flight of a SCR MAV conducted in the indoor flight test facility of the National Defense Academy (NDA) of Japan. Experimental results demonstrate that the stability of the MAV is increased by the meshed platform.