AI-based adaptive control and design of autopilot system for nonlinear UAV

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to design an autopilot system for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to control the speed and altitude using electronic throttle control system (ETCS) and elevator, respectively. A DC servo motor is used for designing of ETCS to control the throttle position for appropriate amount of air mass flow. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based controllers such as fuzzy logic PD, fuzzy logic PD + I, self-tuning fuzzy logic PID (STF-PID) controller and fuzzy logic-based sliding mode adaptive controller (FLSMAC) are designed for stable autopilot system and are compared with conventional PI controller. The target of throttle, speed and altitude controls are to achieve a wide range of air speed, improved energy efficiency and fuel economy with reduced pollutant emission. The energy efficiency using specific energy rate per velocity of UAV is also presented in this paper. © 2014 Indian Academy of Sciences.