End-to-end Neural Network Based Quadcopter control

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ferede, Robin, de Croon, Guido C. H. E., De Wagter, Christophe, Izzo, Dario
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Ferede, Robin
de Croon, Guido C. H. E.
De Wagter, Christophe
Izzo, Dario
author_facet Ferede, Robin
de Croon, Guido C. H. E.
De Wagter, Christophe
Izzo, Dario
contents Developing optimal controllers for aggressive high-speed quadcopter flight poses significant challenges in robotics. Recent trends in the field involve utilizing neural network controllers trained through supervised or reinforcement learning. However, the sim-to-real transfer introduces a reality gap, requiring the use of robust inner loop controllers during real flights, which limits the network's control authority and flight performance. In this paper, we investigate for the first time, an end-to-end neural network controller, addressing the reality gap issue without being restricted by an inner-loop controller. The networks, referred to as G\&CNets, are trained to learn an energy-optimal policy mapping the quadcopter's state to rpm commands using an optimal trajectory dataset. In hover-to-hover flights, we identified the unmodeled moments as a significant contributor to the reality gap. To mitigate this, we propose an adaptive control strategy that works by learning from optimal trajectories of a system affected by constant external pitch, roll and yaw moments. In real test flights, this model mismatch is estimated onboard and fed to the network to obtain the optimal rpm command. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by performing energy-optimal hover-to-hover flights with and without moment feedback. Finally, we compare the adaptive controller to a state-of-the-art differential-flatness-based controller in a consecutive waypoint flight and demonstrate the advantages of our method in terms of energy optimality and robustness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_13460
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle End-to-end Neural Network Based Quadcopter control
Ferede, Robin
de Croon, Guido C. H. E.
De Wagter, Christophe
Izzo, Dario
Robotics
Systems and Control
Developing optimal controllers for aggressive high-speed quadcopter flight poses significant challenges in robotics. Recent trends in the field involve utilizing neural network controllers trained through supervised or reinforcement learning. However, the sim-to-real transfer introduces a reality gap, requiring the use of robust inner loop controllers during real flights, which limits the network's control authority and flight performance. In this paper, we investigate for the first time, an end-to-end neural network controller, addressing the reality gap issue without being restricted by an inner-loop controller. The networks, referred to as G\&CNets, are trained to learn an energy-optimal policy mapping the quadcopter's state to rpm commands using an optimal trajectory dataset. In hover-to-hover flights, we identified the unmodeled moments as a significant contributor to the reality gap. To mitigate this, we propose an adaptive control strategy that works by learning from optimal trajectories of a system affected by constant external pitch, roll and yaw moments. In real test flights, this model mismatch is estimated onboard and fed to the network to obtain the optimal rpm command. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by performing energy-optimal hover-to-hover flights with and without moment feedback. Finally, we compare the adaptive controller to a state-of-the-art differential-flatness-based controller in a consecutive waypoint flight and demonstrate the advantages of our method in terms of energy optimality and robustness.
title End-to-end Neural Network Based Quadcopter control
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.13460