Guidance and Control Co-Design for Enhanced Performance of Fixed-Wing UAVs

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

This paper presents the design and flight test validation of a co-designed guidance and control system for a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The co-design of all integrated control loops enables increased performance capabilities which are especially important for highly dynamic UAV missions. The control design is based on a mixed-sensitivity control approach to enable robust inner loop controls in the presence of uncertainties. The guidance design implements a look-ahead path following algorithm which enables superior performance metrics while considering the computational constraints present for small UAV systems. The co-designed guidance and control approach is applied to a small fixed-wing UAV and flight tested mimicking a highly dynamic urban flight trajectory. The flight-test results not only validate the seamless implementation of the developed algorithms on the available flightcontrol computer, but also demonstrate their robust performance during real-world operations.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Journal IFAC-PapersOnLine
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title23rd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control
Abbreviated titleIFAC World Congress 2026
Conference number23
Duration23 - 28 August 2026
Website
LocationBEXCO
CityBusan
CountryKorea, Republic of

Keywords