abstract = "This paper describes a stochastic approach for
comprehensive diagnostics and validation of control
system architecture for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).
Mathematically based diagnostics of a 6 DoF system
provides capability for a complex evaluation of system
components behaviour, but are typically both memory and
computationally expensive. Design and optimisation of
the flight controllers is a demanding task which
usually requires deep engineering knowledge of
intrinsic aircraft behaviour. Evolutionary Algorithms
(EAs) are known for their robustness for a wide range
of optimising functions, when no a priori knowledge of
the search space is available. Thus it makes
evolutionary approach a promising technique to design
the task controllers for complex dynamic systems such
as an aircraft. In this study, EAs are used to design a
controller for recovery (landing) of a small fixed-wing
UAV on a frigate ship deck. The control laws are
encoded in a way common for Evolutionary Programming.
However, parameters (numeric coefficients in the
control equations) are optimised independently using
effective Evaluation Strategies, while structural
changes occur at a slower rate. The fitness evaluation
is made via test runs on a comprehensive 6
degree-of-freedom non-linear UAV model. The need of a
well defined approach to the control system validation
is dictated by the nature of UAV application, where the
major source of mission success is based on autonomous
control system architecture reliability. The results
show that an effective controller can be designed with
little knowledge of the aircraft dynamics using
appropriate evolutionary techniques. An evolved
controller is evaluated and a set of reliable algorithm
parameters is validated.",
notes = "CEC 2007 - A joint meeting of the IEEE, the EPS, and
the IET.