Nonlinear aircraft modeling and controller design for target tracking

In order to provide a novel perspective for videography of high speed sporting events, a highly capable trajectory tracking control methodology is developed for small scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The proposed controller combines dynamic inversion with linear tracking control using the internal model approach, and relies on a trajectory generating exosystem generated from available target training data. Three different aircraft models are presented each with increasing levels of complexity, in an effort to identify the simplest controller that yields acceptable performance. The dynamic inversion and linear tracking control laws are derived for each model, and simulation results are presented for tracking of elliptical and periodic trajectories.