2014 American Control Conference (ACC)

June 4-6, 2014. Portland, Oregon, USA

Modified State Observer Based Adaptive Control Law Design for

the Black Kite MAV
Venkatasubramani S R Pappu, James E. Steck, Viswanathan Shanmugham, and Guruganesh
Ramamurthi

Abstract— This paper presents the design and simulation of CD δe, CL δe, Cm δe - Drag, Lift and Pitching moment coefficients
a Modified State Observer (MSO) based adaptive control law, for unit change in elevator deflection
developed by Balakrishnan, for a Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). T - Thrust
The MSO allows higher adaptive gains than other adaptive ̅ - Aircraft Mass
control laws. The simulation is carried out using the , - Aerodynamic forces in Forward and vertical
aerodynamic derivatives of the Black Kite 300 mm wing span direction
MAV developed by CSIR-NAL Bangalore. The controller is FX, FZ - Forces in Forward and vertical direction
tested in simulation for its ability to adapt to modeling errors Ixx, Iyy, Izz - Aircraft moment of inertia about x, y and z
for the highly responsive MAV. At present, the study is limited axis
to the longitudinal dynamics of the vehicle. Simulation results - Acceleration due to gravity
are presented that show the controller’s ability to respond to
altitude and airspeed commands with elevator and engine
failures in the presence of parameter uncertainties. The MSO
I. INTRODUCTION
adaptation along with the nonlinear dynamic inversion Recent developments in aircraft flight control system
controller developed using the mathematical model of the technology have made flying more reliable than ever before.
MAV, enables the pilot to control the vehicle with a lower Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV), because of their small size,
workload. are highly sensitive to emergency conditions like failures and
external disturbances. As these vehicles are remotely
Nomenclature operated, knowledge about the flight situation may not be
u, v, w - velocity components in forward, side and readily available and if they are, it is not practical to control
vertical directions them manually. With performance and flight safety in mind,
V - Resultant Airspeed many researchers across the globe have been working on
p, q, r - roll, pitch and yaw rates developing robust adaptive controllers based on neural
̇, ̇ , ̇ - roll, pitch and yaw accelerations networks to cope up with emergency flight conditions.
θ, ϕ, ѱ - Euler angles Calise[1] used neural networks to learn an estimate of the
Xa, Ya, Za - Aerodynamic forces per unit mass
uncertainty and use it to compensate for and provide
L, M, N - Aerodynamic moments about body axis
robustness to the un-modeled dynamics of an aircraft.
γ, α - Aircraft flight path angle and angle of attack
β - Side-slip Angle
Calise[2] developed a neural network based dynamic
̅ - Dynamic pressure inversion technique that incorporated this method. Another
S - Wing Planform Area direct adaptive control technique based on neural networks in
c - chord length the presence of damage or failures was developed by Gundy-
b - wing span Burlet[3], et al. An indirect adaptive control algorithm,
CD, CL, CY - Drag, Lift and Side Force coefficients developed by Sajjadi-Kia and Kang[4], combines the
Cl, Cm, Cn - Roll, Pitch and Yaw moment coefficients modified-gain extended Kalman Filter (MGEKF) and an
h, hcmd - Altitude and altitude command respectively extended linear quadratic Gaussian controller. The control
Vcmd - Velocity command gains are computed by estimating the system dynamics using
δe, δa - Elevator and Aileron deflection MGEKF. An adaptive control technique using a series of
CD0, CL0, CY0, Cm0 - Drag, Lift, Side Force and Pitching Moment kalman filters was developed by Sun and Joshi[5], to control
coefficients at zero-angle of attack the aircraft during actuator and sensor failures. These
CDα, CLα, Cmα - Drag, Lift and Pitching moment coefficients methods learn the adaptation based on the modelling or
for unit change in angle of attack tracking error present in the closed loop system dynamics.
Rajagopal[6], et al. proposed a modified state observer
Venkatasubramani S R Pappu is a Graduate Student in Wichita State (MSO) method that uses a general observer structure in
University, Wichita, KS 67260 USA (Phone: +1-316-558-2152; e-mail: determining the estimation error dynamics. The MSO
vxsubbareddiarpappu@wichita.edu).
estimation error dynamics are determined much faster than
James E. Steck. is a Professor in Aerospace Engineering Department,
Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260 USA (e-mail: the systems dynamics. This allows for large adaptive gains
james.steck@wichita.edu). without introducing the typical oscillations associated with
Viswanathan Shanmugham is a Scientist in Flight Mechanics and high gain adaptation on the system error dynamics.
Control Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore-560017 Venkatasubramani[7], et al. used the MSO based adaptations
India (e-mail: viswa0810@gmail.com). to remove the undesired PLA oscillations that is observed
Guruganesh Ramamurthi is a Scientist in Flight Mechanics and Control
Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore-560017 India during the flight tests of MRAC based adaptive controller for
(e-mail: rguruganesh@nal.res.in). a general aviation aircraft.

978-1-4799-3274-0/$31.00 ©2014 AACC 32

 Figure 1 – Block Diagram of MSO based Longitudinal Inverse Controller for Altitude and Velocity Command

In our paper, an MSO adaptation based controller is estimation error, rather than tracking or modeling error, is
designed for the longitudinal dynamics of the Black Kite used in the Lyapunov based stable weight update rule as
micro aerial vehicle (MAV) developed by CSIR-NAL given in (3). Further details and a stability proof can be found
Bangalore. The modeling of MSO adaptation is described in in reference[9].
Section II followed by the mathematical model of the Black
Kite in Section III. The nonlinear dynamic inverse controller ̂̇ ( ) ̂ ̂( ̂ ) (3)
developed for the longitudinal control of the vehicle is In equation (3), is the adaptation rate, is the solution to
discussed in Section IV. Section V details the results obtained the Lyapunov equation and is the robust term to ensure
for modeling uncertainty cases. Simulation is carried out boundedness of neural network weights. The block diagram
using the MATLAB®/SIMULINK® tool and plots showing of the adaptive controller used for this work is shown in
the controller’s capability to track altitude and velocity
Figure 1. The ̇ and ̇ are the estimated uncertainties
commands in the presence of modeling errors and failures are
by the MSO for the velocity and pitch rate command. Figure
also presented.
2 shows the block diagram representation of the design of
MSO based inverse controller.
II. MODIFIED STATE OBSERVER
The MSO adaptation based controller developed by
Balakrishnan[8] is discussed here. Let (1) describes the
aircraft dynamics of the MAV.
̇ ( ) ( ) (1)
Here, the known nonlinear dynamics is represented by the
first term ( ) and the second term ( ),
represent the unknown dynamics that must be estimated. In
equation (1), is the vector of states to be controlled,
(velocity and altitude) and is the vector of other
measurable states (pitch angle and pitch rate ). The
control inputs are thrust and elevator deflection. The Figure 2 – General Block Diagram of MSO based Controller
observer structure in (2), is used to estimate the unknown
(nonlinear) dynamics.
III. AIRCRAFT MODEL
̂̇ ( ) ̂( ) ( ̂ ) (2)
The uncertainty term ̂ ( ) is replaced by the Neural The Black kite MAV, developed by CSIR-NAL
Bangalore, has an endurance of approximately 20 minutes,
network based approximation, ̂ ( ) ̂ ( ).
̂ is the neural network weight vector and ( has a 2 km operational range, and flies at a cruise altitude of
) is the
60-100m AGL. The vehicle is designed for a cruise speed of
vector of basis functions, that is the kronecker product of 15 m/s and a climb rate of 2.5 m/s. The aircraft is hand
{ ̇ and V/15}. In equation (2), , is a design parameter
launched. It has high maneuverability and excellent flight
and is a gain on the estimation error ̂ ( ̂ ) between characteristics.
the measured states and estimated states ̂ . This

33
 ̅
[ ] [ ] (7)
̅

[ ] ̅ [ ] (8)

The MAV is equipped with elevator and aileron controls.

There is no rudder. The force and moment coefficients are
modeled linearly in (9) and (10) as:
Force Coefficients:
Figure 3 – Black kite Micro Aerial Vehicle

The geometric properties of this aircraft are shown in Table I. [ ] (9)

[ ]
TABLE I. GEOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF BLACKKITE
Serial
Properties Value Units
No. Moment Coefficients:
1 Mass 0.29 kg
[ ]
2 Wing span 0.3 m

3 Mean Aerodynamic Chord 0.25 m (10)

4 Wing Surface Area 0.06118 m2 [ ]
IXX 0.00301326 kg-m2

IYY 0.00310261 kg- m2

5 Inertia
IZZ 0.0002636712 kg- m2 IV. INVERSE CONTROLLER DESIGN
IXZ 0.000001093 kg- m2 The nonlinear aircraft equations of motion are used in
designing the inverse controller[12] to control the
6 Moment Reference Position [0.074 0 0] m longitudinal and lateral dynamics of the aircraft.
A. Longitudinal Dynamics Controller
A. Mathematical Model The drag and the pitching moment equations for wings
An accurate mathematical model of the aircraft dynamics level flight are manipulated to compute the required thrust
is developed using the nonlinear six degree of freedom and the elevator deflection to attain the commanded velocity,
equations of motion[10]. The aerodynamic and stability ̇ and pitch rate, ̇ .
derivatives of the Blackkite 300 mm wing span model are
̅( ̇ ) ̅ ( )
obtained from wind tunnel tests conducted by CSIR-
NAL[11]. ̅( ̇ ) ̅ ( ) (11)
Force Equations: ̈
̇
The pitching moment terms are measured about the hinge
̇ (4) point of the MAV in wind tunnel and hence to get accurate
̇ rate of change of , the moment about center of gravity is
Moment Equations: given by
̅
Neglecting the coupled nonlinear terms, the moment
equations are as in (5).
Substituting in the 3rd of equations (11), we get
̇
̇ (5)
( ( ) )̅
̇ ̇ (12)
Kinematic Equations: where the downward force is
̇
̅ ( ) and
̇ (6)
is the aerodynamic center.
̇
Substituting for force coefficients using 1st two of equations
Aerodynamic Forces and Moments: (9) for and and rearranging (12) for we get
̇
The longitudinal and lateral-directional aerodynamic ( )
̅
forces and moments are functions of the force and moment (13)
coefficients respectively. ̅

34
where the controller’s capability to adapting for 35% elevator
- Pitching moment coefficient for unit change in pitch rate failure only. Figures (10) to (14) show the response plots of
the PI and PI+MSO combination for the altitude and velocity
̅ [ ( ( ) (
command for Case #7 of Table III. The PI controller is
) )] unable to hold the altitude command in the presence of off-
̅ [ ] design Cmα as soon as the velocity is increased from 10 m/s
to 20 m/s.
where, is the minimum drag coefficient
is the lift coefficient for minimum drag TABLE II. RESULTS FOR CHANGE IN CM-ALPHA IN AIRCRAFT
is the lift coefficient for unit change in pitch rate Case Cmα - Cmα - Elevator Engine
Result
Combining the 1st two of equations (11) and transforming # Aircraft Controller Failure Failure
them to stability axes to solve for Thrust , gives 1 -0.5 -1 - - Adapts

( )
[̅ ̇ ̅ ( ) ̅ ( )] (14) 2 -0.5 -1 30% 75% Adapts

where, is the Thrust-line angle, positive up 3 -0.5 -1 40% 75% Adapts

̇ is the commanded acceleration 4 1 -1 - -
Does not
Adapt
Does not
5 1 -1 30% 75%
Adapt
V. RESULTS
The Black kite MAV with the aircraft model and the TABLE III. RESULTS FOR CHANGE IN CM-ALPHA IN CONTROLLER
inverse controller detailed in the previous sections is tested Case Cmα - Cmα - Elevator Engine
Result
for the adaptation capabilities in its longitudinal dynamics # Aircraft Controller Failure Failure
using the MSO adaptation based nonlinear dynamic inverse 1 -1 -0.5 - - Adapts
controller. The nominal PI controller is designed based on
2 -1 -0.5 35% 75% Adapts
the aircraft short period mode characteristics. The
aerodynamic data used in the aircraft model is obtained by Does not
3 -1 -0.5 40% 75%
Adapt
wind tunnel tests at 15 m/s. The MAV is given a ramp and
4 -1 1 - - Adapts
step altitude command and also a step velocity command.
Two scenarios are studied to observe the adaptation 5 -1 1 35% 75% Adapts
capability for the parameter uncertainties– Does not
6 -1 1 40% 75%
A. Modeling Error in Aircraft Adapt
B. Modeling Error in Inverse Controller 7 -1 -1.5 - - Adapts

8 -1 -1.5 35% 75% Adapts

A. Adaptation for Modeling Error in Aircraft Does not
The MSO adaptation is tested for the parameter 9 -1 -1.5 40% 75%
Adapt
uncertainties that arise from modeling inaccuracies. The
pitching moment coefficient due to alpha (Cmα) is varied by 350
PI
+/- 50% of the design value for the aircraft. The Cmα value of 1. Velocity command initiated at
PI + MSO

-1 is the nominal value for the aircraft. Table II shows the 300
80 seconds.
Command

2. Adapts between 5 to 10
results. The aircraft does not have enough elevator to trim seconds after the onset of failure
for +50% Cmα value and hence this data is not shown in at 140 seconds.
250
Table II. It is to be noted that Case #3 in Table II, shows
that the aircraft adapts well for 40% elevator failure, which
Altitude (m)

is not the case in scenario B. This is due to the reduced Cmα 200

of the aircraft in scenario A which in turn reduces the

required elevator to trim. Figures (4) to (9) show the 150

response of the aircraft for the altitude command with and

without MSO adaptation for Case #2. It is observed from the
100
Figure (4) that the PI controller is not capable of adapting to
and following the altitude command once the combined
elevator and engine failure is initiated at 140 seconds. 50
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
time (sec)

B. Adaptation for Modeling Error in Controller Figure 4 – Altitude Response for change in Cmα in aircraft
The pitching moment coefficient due to alpha (Cmα) is (Cmα_Aircraft = 0.5 x Cmα_Controller)
varied by +/- 50% of the design value for the inverse
controller. The results for this study are shown in Table III.
Also, the design variables of the aircraft presently used, limit

35
 35 60
PI + MSO PI + MSO
30 Command Command
50
25

40
20

15 30

Pitch Rate (deg/sec)

Theta (deg)

10
20
5

0 10

-5
0

-10
-10
-15 Reduction in Pitch
Rate due to failures
-20 -20
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
time (sec) time (sec)

Figure 5 – Theta Response for change in Cmα in aircraft Figure 6 – Pitch Rate Response for change in Cmα in aircraft
23
PI
18
PI + MSO
Abrupt velocity PI + MSO
22 Command
changes while using
PI controller on the 16
21 onset of failures at
140 seconds 14
20

12
Velocity (m/s)

19
Increase in
Thrust (N)

10
Commanded
18 Thrust to
compensate
17
8 failures

16 6

15 4

14 2
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
time (sec) time (sec)

Figure 7 – Velocity Response for change in Cmα in aircraft Figure 8 – Thrust Response for change in Cmα in aircraft
10 350
PI + MSO
1. Velocity command
300 initiated at 80 seconds.
5 2. PI controller could not hold
the desired altitude after 80
seconds.
250
Elevator Deflection (deg)

0
Altitude (m)

200

-5

150
PI
PI + MSO
-10 Command
100

-15 50
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
 time (sec)  time (sec) 
Figure 9 – Elevator Deflection for change in Cmα in aircraft Figure 10 – Altitude Response for change in Cmα in controller
(Cmα_Controller = 1.5 x Cmα_Aircraft)

36
 30 23
PI + MSO PI
Command
PI + MSO
22
Command
25

21

20 20

Velocity (m/s)
19
Theta (deg)

15

18

10 17

16
5

15

0 14
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
time (sec)  time (sec) 
Figure 11 –Theta Response for change in Cmα in controller Figure 12 – Velocity Response for change in Cmα in controller

18
-6 PI + MSO PI + MSO

16
-8

-10
14

-12
Elevator Deflection (deg)

12
-14

Thrust (N)
10
-16

-18 8

-20
6
-22

4
-24

-26 2
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
time (sec)
  time (sec)

Figure 13 – Elevator Response for change in Cmα in controller Figure 14 – Thrust Response for change in Cmα in controller

VI. CONCLUSION
A Modified State Observer based adaptive controller is [3] Karen Gundy-Burlet, K.,Krishnakumar, Greg Limes and Don Bryant
“Control Reallocation Strategies for Damage Adaptation in Transport
tested for its adaptive capabilities for the MAV type aircraft
Class Aircraft”, AIAA-2003-5642, Aug. 2003.
model which, due to its size, requires a relatively fast [4] Sajjadi-Kia, S., and Kang, S., “Indirect Adaptive Control for Systems
response. The simulation results show that MSO controller with Unknown or Varying Dynamics”, Proceedings of the AIAA
adapts well for modeling errors accompanied with failures. Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, AIAA, Toronto,
Ontario.
The controller’s capability in adapting to parameter
[5] Sun, J., and Joshi, S., “An indirect Adaptive Control Scheme in the
uncertainty is determined by varying the aircraft pitching Presence of Actuator and Sensor Failures”, AIAA Paper 2009-5740,
moment coefficient by +/- 50%. The usage of this adaptive Aug. 2009.
controller can be extended for controlling the lateral [6] Rajagopal, K., Mannava, A., Balakrishnan,S.N., Krishnakumar, K.and
Nguyen, N. “Neuroadaptive model following controller for non-
dynamics and also for the flight of the MAV in atmospheric
affine,non-square aircraft system”, AIAA Guidance Navigation
turbulences. Control Conference and Exhibit, Chicago, IL, 2009.
[7] Venkatasubramani,S.R.Pappu, James E. Steck, Karthikeyan Rajagopal
ACKNOWLEDGMENT and Balakrishnan, S.N. “Modified State Observer Based Adaptation of
a General Aviation Aircraft -Simulation and Flight Test”, AIAA 2014-
This material is based upon work carried out in National 1297, Jan. 2014.
Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, during the student’s [8] Balakrishnan, S.N., Karthikeyan Rajagopal, Steck, J. E., and Dwayne
Kimball “Robust Adaptive Control of a General Aviation Aircraft”
internship program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions
AIAA-2010-7942.
or recommendations expressed in this material are those of [9] Nathan Harl, Karthikeyan Rajagopal, and Balakrishnan, S.N. “Neural
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Network Based Modified State Observer for Orbit Uncertainty
National Aerospace Laboratories. Estimation” Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Vol. 36, No.
4, July-August 2013.
[10] Brian L. Stevens and Frank L. Lewis, “Aircraft Control and
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