Model Predictive Control of the Small UAV

Abstract

Recently there are many new UAV applications changing the attitude of the common drone users. There is a drone taxi concept about the tourists’ sightseeing activity in urban and habited area, or, a flying motorcycle concept planning to deliver to the police or to the firefighters to enhance their transport capabilities. There is a common trend, and the requirement at the same time, to improve flying capabilities of the UAVs (like flight time, or flight range). The newest UAV applications predict more busy airspace requiring collision avoidance capability of the UAVs both in UAV vs UAV, and in UAV vs non-UAV relationship. The purpose of the author is to prove that model predictive control (MPC) concept may serve very effectively if there is a task to track a pre-defined flight path of the UAV.