Long-range precision strikes by multirotors carrying fixed Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) warheads are plagued by airframe disturbances, EFP trajectory dispersion and nonlinear coupling between visual measurement and attitude motion. To tackle these bottlenecks, a research team from Beijing Institute of Technology developed an image-aided terminal guidance attitude control scheme and built a full multi-physics coupling model to describe strike error propagation.
The researchers established a singularity-free target feature description via spherical projection and unit quaternions, then constructed a composite controller combining non-singular terminal sliding mode and super-twisting disturbance observer. “The controller realizes finite-time convergence of attitude errors and real-time compensation of wind gusts and model uncertainties, greatly improving aiming stability during large-angle agile maneuvers,” shares corresponding author Qiang Wang.
Multi-group Monte Carlo simulations and outdoor flight verification tests were conducted to assess strike performance. “Parameter sensitivity analysis confirmed multirotor attitude angles dominate strike dispersion, while EFP flight delay and carrier velocity bring minor impacts,” says Wang. “Comparative tests of three strike modes show the proposed attitude maneuver strike finishes targeting within 0.142 s, far faster than lateral hovering and close-in assault modes, and maintains over 95% hit rate for moving targets under complex disturbances.”
Real-world flight experiments with a quadrotor platform further verified its practical stability. “Simulation and flight data prove the integrated visual guidance and robust control method can effectively suppress multi-source strike errors at standoff distances,” adds Wang.
Taken together, the team’s findings quantified the error transmission rules of EFP-equipped multirotor strike systems and delivers a high-response anti-disturbance control solution, offering a complete modeling and control framework for standoff precision strike missions of small combat multirotors."
The team published their findings in the KeAi journal Defence Technology .
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Contact the author: Qiang Wang, School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China. wang_qiang@bit.edu.cn
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Defence Technology
Experimental study
Not applicable
Attitude control of multirotor with image-aided terminal guidance for precision target strike
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.