Ground Target Tracking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

The work here presented is framed in the Research and Technology Project on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (PITVANT) and contributes to the development of control systems for ground target tracking for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is assumed that the UAV has an inner loop controller onboard that accepts commands in indicated air speed and bank, and appropriately sets the control surface deflections and thrust in order to follow those references in the presence of unknown wind. An outer loop is designed so that the UAV can track a moving target on the ground whose position, velocity and acceleration is assumed to be known. The algorithm switches between a tracking control law responsible for taking the UAV to the vertical of the ground target and a path following control law that enables the UAV to follow a circumference centered at the moving target, keeping it in the vicinity of the target even if the target moves at a velocity lower than the UAV stall velocity. Hardware in the loop simulations using one of the PITVANTs vehicles show the performance of the control scheme presented.