Control of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (eBook)

Control of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles is an edited book that provides a single-volume snapshot on the state of the art in the field of control theory applied to the design of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aka 'drones', employed in a variety of applications. The homogeneous structure allows the reader to transition seamlessly through results in guidance, navigation, and control of UAVs, according to the canonical classification of the main components of a UAV's autopilot.

Each chapter has been written to assist graduate students and practitioners in the fields of aerospace engineering and control theory. The contributing authors duly present detailed literature reviews, conveying their arguments in a systematic way with the help of diagrams, plots, and algorithms. They showcase the applicability of their results by means of flight tests and numerical simulations, the results of which are discussed in detail.

Control of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles will interest readers who are researchers, practitioners or graduate students in control theory, autonomous systems or robotics, or in aerospace, mechanical or electrical engineering.

Dr. Andrea L'Afflitto is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech with affiliate faculty positions in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, and the National Security Institute. He is the author of a SpringerBrief on flight controls, 2 book chapters, 22 journal papers, and 24 conference papers. Among his research awards, it is worthwhile mentioning the 2018 DARPA Young Faculty Award for a project involving autonomous tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, and among his service awards, it is worthwhile mentioning his recognition as an outstanding reviewer for the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems in 2021. Presently, he serves as the Senior Editor for the Autonomous Systems area of the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

Dr. Hyo-Sang Shin is currently a Professor of Guidance, Control and Navigation Systems and Head of the Autonomous and Intelligent Systems Group at Cranfield University. He has been involved in numerous UK, EU and international research programmes on unmanned aerial vehicles, swarms and other autonomous systems and has published 1 book, 9 book chapters and over 200 journal and conference papers. Professor Shin has significant experience in UAV guidance and control and has been invited to give various keynotes, invited talks and seminars. His current research interests include target tracking, data-driven guidance and control, and distributed control of multiple-agent systems.