Abstract—In the present era of aviation technology, autonomous
navigation and control have emerged as a prime area of active
research. Owing to the tremendous developments in the field,
autonomous controls have led today’s engineers to claim that future
of aerospace vehicle is unmanned. Development of guidance and
navigation algorithms for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an
extremely challenging task, which requires efforts to meet strict, and
at times, conflicting goals of guidance and control. In this paper,
aircraft altitude and heading controllers and an efficient algorithm for
self-governing navigation using MATLAB® mapping toolbox is
presented which also enables loitering of a fixed wing UAV over a
specified area. For this purpose, a nonlinear mathematical model of a
UAV is used. The nonlinear model is linearized around a stable trim
point and decoupled for controller design. The linear controllers are
tested on the nonlinear aircraft model and navigation algorithm is
subsequently developed for for autonomous flight of the UAV. The
results are presented for trajectory controllers and waypoint based
navigation. Our investigation reveals that MATLAB® mapping
toolbox can be exploited to successfully deliver an efficient algorithm
for autonomous aerial navigation for a UAV.
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 66 2012
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