Control Laws Based on Non-Linear Dynamic Inversion Theory for Autonomous Flight Vehicles

The study of advanced control systems in the context of aerospace engineering applications is a challenging task and an evolving research field. Among the wide set of available control techniques, Non Linear Dynamic Inversion (NLDI) plays a role of primary importance. The work described in this dissertation takes place in such a context. In particular, it is focused on the definition of both architecture and control laws for an advanced control system, based on feedback-linearization theory, and able to maintain a predefined geometry for a formation of unmanned aerial vehicles. In the first part of this thesis, after a brief introduction to formation flying, we will briefly recall the theory of feedback linearization. Then, an application to a case study will be described. The most innovative aspect of such an application is that the designed control law allows one to obtain a fully three-dimensional control of the formation. This is in contrast to the previous approach available in the literature, in which the use of NLDI technique was applied to two dimensional problems only. The last part of this thesis contains the simulation results, obtained in a Simulink environment, that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.