Takuma Hino

System Identification of Small UAVs with MEMS-based Avionics

A new MEMS-based small, light, and cost-effective avionics is proposed in order to improve the current situation of system identification of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which mostly depends on difficult wind tunnel tests. The avionics is capable of gathering navigation, wind, and control input data accurately. Flight tests with a small UAV are conducted, and its longitudinal stability derivatives are obtained accurately using flight data obtained by the avionics and system identification techniques.

Application of Wavelet Transform to System Identification of Small UAVs Flight Characteristic

In this paper, a new system identification technique of flight characteristic of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is proposed. The proposed method is characterized by the use of time-frequency information provided by wavelet transform. The use of wavelet transform enhances robustness against undesirable condition on small UAVs flight, such as wind gust. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated using flight log obtained by special avionics in real flight of a small UAV. The target small UAV used for the validation and avionics are also introduced for completeness.

Formation Control of Small Unmanned Air Vehicles Under Faulty Communications

This paper discusses controlling formation of small unmanned air vehicles under faulty communication between formation members. The control scheme proposed in this paper combines virtual leader approach with point-to-multipoint communication, in order to enhance its robustness to communication failures and vehicle losses. Numerical simulation results show that formations will properly converge for a great majority of possible communication networks between vehicles and for communication success rates as low as 10%. Preparations for ground tests and flight tests are currently under way.

Decentralised Formation Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Virtual Leaders

In this chapter, a simple but robust formation control scheme for unmanned aerial vehicles is proposed. The proposed scheme is based on the virtual leader approach. Mathematical proof is provided to show that the scheme allows formations to converge, as long as sufficient communications between formation members take place. Monte Carlo tests showed that the proposed scheme allows formations with 95% of the possible communication networks to converge. Also, numerical simulations showed that proposed scheme allows formations to converge even if only 10% of the total communication succeeds.

Heuristic path planning of unmanned aerial vehicle formations

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to propose a novel method to plan paths of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) formations. This is to make use of the aerodynamic advantage of formation flight to reduce energy consumption of UAVs.Design/methodology/approach – The method proposed in this research make use of the fact that, under certain conditions, the regions where if a UAV rendezvous or separates with another UAV would save energy by formation flying can be analytically calculated. The intersections of these regions are used to decide which UAV are to fly in the same formation. This combination of which UAV are to fly together and what order they join/part from the formation is called the topology of the problem.Findings – The proposed method was proved to be effective in identifying efficient topologies, with the majority of the topologies selected falling below 5 percent error rate in terms of energy.Originality/value – The originality of this research lies in the fact that the proposed method is co...

Research Activity on Unmanned Air Vehicles at the University of Tokyo

This paper will summarize recent research activities on small unmanned aerial vehicles at the University of Tokyo. The topics discussed are: fields of research, unmanned aerial vehicles currently used and under development, and avionics and ground control station software.