Intelligent Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Improved Autonomy

This paper focuses on recent advances in the control of unmanned aerial vehicles on a single platform basis. Additionally it addresses the case when UAV assets are operating in groups or clusters intended to accomplish surveillance and reconnaissance, rescue, forest fire detection or other critical missions. The scope of the paper is to suggest challenges in UAV control for extreme performance and reliability – both of which are necessary attributes of vehicle autonomy. Intelligent control technologies aimed at stability augmentation and performance enhancement are addressed. Topics for multiple UAVs are discussed dealing with mission planning, cooperative control and vehicle cooperation when UAV teams are performing missions in urban or other environments.