The UTA autonomous aerial vehicle-automatic control

Some preliminary results on the design and implementation of robust automatic controls for the University of Texas at Arlington autonomous VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) prototype are presented. Both stability augmentation and navigational issues are addressed. Since the use of inexpensive sensors and actuators has resulted in a relatively large degree of uncertainty about the system model, a robust controller is required. The authors demonstrate the mixed H/sub 2//H/sub Omega /-optimal design methodology used to obtain the automatic controllers for this aircraft. The technique used is a loop transfer recovery procedure which has been generalized by the removal of an assumption constraining a design variable.<<ETX>>