Modeling and Control of fixed wing UAV for autonomous navigation

A study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has been very active in recent decades due to the rapid advances in construction and aviation technology advancements. Unmanned ariel vehicles (UAVs) or Drones have become an essential part of the global defense aviation industry in recent years. It is widely

Project Title

Modeling and Control of fixed wing UAV for autonomous navigation

Project Area of Specialization

Mechatronics Engineering

Project Summary

A study on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has been very active in recent decades due to the rapid advances in construction and aviation technology advancements. Unmanned ariel vehicles (UAVs) or Drones have become an essential part of the global defense aviation industry in recent years. It is widely used for surveillance, investigations, data transmission, and data collection or access to an unsafe environment, such as a flood-affected area or a virus. Fixed-wing UAVs are preferred over the standard rotor-wing type of UAV for self-defense purposes due to their high-speed response and flexibility over the last decade; work on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and particularly fixed-wing has captured both academia and industry's attention because of their mechanical and control simplicity, high maneuverability, and low cost. These features of UAVs have made it popular among aerial bots in a large number of Robotics applications such as Defence and surveillance

Nevertheless, most autonomous UAV designers' most challenging tasks are the safe navigation system in unknown environments. Most works generally include obstacle avoidance and navigation while presuming the environment is static, and the position of the UAV is known in a previously defined map. In recent years, we have seen the development of autonomous UAVs that can perform autonomously in unknown environments – Now that is our main goal to achieve one.

The real huddle in autonomous navigation is ensuring that the UAV must track a set of waypoints, avoid collisions and complete the mission with only a set of resources with limited capabilities such as the limited power supply, onboard sensors, and companion computer during the flight. To ace this task, we take the UAV's odometry from the simulated environment, estimations from onboard visual and inertial information as the feedback for waypoint tracking. To perceive the local environment, we require visual and ranging data, i.e., Depth Image, Light Detection, Pressure measurements, etc... To successfully complete the desired flight path and avoid collisions with obstacles, we require these estimated states of the UAV, flight path, and obstacles are required to generate a successful, safe and autonomous flight

This project aims to introduce the X-8 Skywalker UAV  into a simulated and then actual environment to determine the performance of the features and controls of the aircraft's flight dynamics.We will present an onboard vision-based approach to avoid obstacles in such environments using visual odometry algorithms.,waypoint Tracking or Stereo Image Processing techniques shall perceive the environment and estimate the obstacles' position, which requires fast processing and computing capabilities that a GPU or Graphical Processor Unit can only provide, such as Nvidia's Jetson Nano,also enabling us to use the ROS framework to control, communicate, and interact with our Autonomous UAV

Project Objectives

The Main Objectives of our Project are as follows:

1. To create a 3d model of skywalker x8 UAV and perform CFD on it

2. Insert our CAD model in GAZEBO and define its initial properties

3. use a fixed-wing UAV controller to simulate a guide waypoint follower

4.link between Matlab and ROS that is to subscribe from ROS node and to publish it

 5 perform software in loop testing (SITL), i.e., simulate in GAZEBO in interference with Matlab controls

  6. Perform HITL (Hardware In The Loop) Simulation on real Flight Controller Board

Additional Objectives

1. Explore the possibility of expanding our Project Scope to incorporate Defence or military-based applications (such as swarm of drones)

2. Explore other functionalities of Autonomous Drones

3. Test our UAV with different payloads

Project Implementation Method

The first stage of our Project begins with fixed-wing UAV research to gather information about its type; after researching, we found that the most agile of them was a flying wing. After choosing a particular flying wing design for which hardware was available, we concluded to build an open, low-cost unmanned aerial system (UAS) based on a popular flying-wing Skywalker X-8 platform and the widely used open-source flight control Pixhawk system with a dual processor, equipped with a global positioning system, data teletransmission module, etc. The next phase was creating a CAD model of the skywalker x8. Once that goal was accomplished, we performed a CFD on our design in Solidworks flow simulations; this was to ensure the wing design and the body design be aerodynamically efficient

Once the CFD simulation turned out to be right, we will install Ubuntu 16.04 Operating System and ROS Kinetic firmware. We will then create a URDF mesh file and visualize the CAD model in RVIZ; after adjusting its origin, once that is achieved, we will transfer our file to GAZEBO simulations, where we will specify our control surfaces and add different control plugins, i.e., model plugins, sensor plugins, etc. After this, we will design or use a pre-existing controller and modify it according to our specifications. We are to use Matlab r2020b, which has numerous toolboxes that will enable us to perform our task more efficiently; we will use a UAV toolbox which has preset controllers for fixed-wing waypoint follower, we will also use UAV animations to verify the desired  trajectory once all parameters and conditions are checked we will then use MATLAB coder to generate a C/C++  code of our controller

We will then interface our Flight Controller (Pixhawk Autopilot) with Jetson Nano (in which we have also installed Ubuntu 16.04 and ROS kinetic) via MAVROS (a ROS Package that will enable communication with Jetson Nano Pixhawk Autopilot via MAVLink Protocol for communication). Once the interfacing is successful, we will receive all the information from our Pixhawk Flight Controller, including all the sensor data. Our Base Station (our pc) will communicate with our (onboard Computer) Jetson Nano over ROS via WiFi network. After this, we will try to perform SITL Simulation using the Gazebo Simulator to test basic code and programming for the first Autonomous Test Flight in simulations with the integration of ROS-Matlab with the help of ROS toolbox and jetson Pixhawk interface that is built-in Matlab, visualizing all this on Gazebo simulations, once successful we will test it on our hardware system

Finally, after every parameter checked and every environmental condition account for, we will perform HIL (hardware in the loop) testing where we will put our skywalker x8 in a real-world environment and will give it a path to follow it,for safety will ensure a manual override option is available where you can control the drone via RC controller

Benefits of the Project

           General

1) They can be used to perform remote and dangerous tasks autonomously.

2) Control and monitoring of beaches and coasts: the control of coastal erosions and the beaches the verification of the efficiency of the works of regulation and protection of the coasts is strategic, but it is often conditioned from the times of realization of the campaigns and from the high costs, which can be optimized by the use of UAV;

3) Monitoring and inspection of electric lines, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, railway lines, district heating – identification and search of damages on photovoltaic installations: exploiting the potential of the infrared survey of extended areas, it is possible to monitor infrastructural networks continuously, identifying possible damages or malfunctioning in a short time and with moderate costs

4) glacier monitoring: the near-infrared analysis allows to identify of the typology, the thickness, the extension, and the movements, of marine and terrestrial glaciers

5)They can access the damage, locate victims and deliver aid in remote areas affected by natural disasters. They can also assist Search & Rescue Teams and other authorities during distressing times that quick emergency response.

                 

          Military

1) It can be used for Defence and military-based applications such as surveillance, simple offensive maneuvers, intruder detection, and others that can provide tactical advantages to our Armed Forces.

2) It can be used for Border Patrol and detect illegal activities such as Smuggling, trafficking, etc. It can also be used by law enforcement agencies for effective crime prevention in the city, hence improving the law-and-order conditions

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

In simple terms, our final deliverables are that our Flying wing UAV is an HW/SW based system, it will have the ability to fly autonomously and manually no matter what type of conditions are it will complete its mission and send back the required data to the ground station.

A visual representation in Simulation will be carried out in Gazebo in order to prove its agility in various environment

Also, a manual with clear instructions will be provided on how to operate the UAV

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Others

Other Industries

IT , Transportation , Media , Security

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Others

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com