Full metadata record
| DC Field | Value | Language |
|---|---|---|
| dc.contributor | Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering | en_US |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Huang, Hailong (AAE) | en_US |
| dc.creator | Zhang, Chengchen | - |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/14472 | - |
| dc.language | English | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Hong Kong Polytechnic University | en_US |
| dc.rights | All rights reserved | en_US |
| dc.title | Automated landing of quadrotors on an unmanned aerial vehicle carrier in unknown environments : trajectory planning and nonlinear model predictive control | en_US |
| dcterms.abstract | Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have found widespread application across diverse fields, yet their operational endurance remains severely constrained by on-board energy storage. While researchers have explored technologies such as high-energy-density batteries, in-flight wireless power transfer, and ground-based charging stations to extend operational duration, these approaches offer only incremental improvements and fail to meet the demand for a self-contained, flexible platform capable of transporting, deploying, and autonomously retrieving a fleet of UAVs in remote areas without human intervention. Addressing this gap, this thesis focuses on the automated landing of quadrotors on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Carrier (UAVC), a "mother ship" that serves as a base for take-off, landing, and recovery, with the aim of enhancing autonomy and operational sustainability in unknown environments. | en_US |
| dcterms.abstract | This task presents significant challenges, with two core aspects being real-time collision-free path planning and the design of robust control systems to mitigate disturbances caused by downwash winds. Accordingly, the research objective is to develop effective, scenario-specific trajectory planning and control strategies to address this automated landing task. Two trajectory planners are proposed: a hard-constrained planner that ensures strict compliance with collision and dynamic constraints via global pathfinding and convex decomposition, and a soft-constrained planner that balances efficiency and safety through integrated global planning and local refinement. A Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) framework with a dynamic downwash wind model is also designed to improve landing stability. | en_US |
| dcterms.abstract | Key results validate our proposed methods. The hard-constrained planner achieves full success in simulations, ensuring strict compliance with collision and dynamic constraints, a feature critical for high-risk scenarios. Meanwhile, the soft-constrained planner maintains a 95% success rate while achieving significantly higher speeds and computation times reduced by half, making it well-suited for common real-world environments. The NMPC framework with the downwash model significantly reduces vertical position errors during landing, and real-world tests confirm the soft-constrained planner's robustness with low tracking errors. | en_US |
| dcterms.abstract | This work holds significant value in addressing a critical gap in UAV operations: enabling reliable autonomous landing on moving aerial carriers, thereby overcoming the endurance limitations of battery-powered UAVs and facilitating sustained, distributed missions in remote or complex environments. By focusing on unknown environments, it fills a void in existing trajectory planning and control methods that often rely on prior environmental knowledge or struggle with dynamic disturbances like downwash winds. Specifically, the proposed trajectory planning frameworks can be applied in different scenarios by balancing the trade-off between strict constraint compliance and real-time performance. The hard-constrained approach ensures collision avoidance and dynamic feasibility in high-risk scenarios, while the soft-constrained method demonstrates robustness and efficiency in common real-world scenarios. The NMPC framework with the downwash model further enhances stability, reducing vertical oscillations of the UAVC by 68% in real-world tests. Comprehensive experimental validation including simulated tests in Gazebo and real-world trials confirms the practical applicability of these methods, bridging the gap between theoretical design and real-world implementation. | en_US |
| dcterms.extent | ix, 114 pages : color illustrations | en_US |
| dcterms.isPartOf | PolyU Electronic Theses | en_US |
| dcterms.issued | 2025 | en_US |
| dcterms.educationalLevel | M.Phil. | en_US |
| dcterms.educationalLevel | All Master | en_US |
| dcterms.accessRights | open access | en_US |
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