Position Control in Simulated Airplanes

A simulation method for simplified planes that relies on describing the plane as a set of discrete parts is described and used in the development of an attitude and position controller. The attitude controller uses two Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) controllers for the pitching and rolling movements of the plane. The two controllers were optimized simultaneously using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), attempting to minimize error and control variance. Position control was developed making use of the mentioned attitude controller in a cascade control architecture, using additional PID controllers for the heading and altitude. The position controller was also optimized using PSO and was capable of following a trajectory made of four way-points spread out several kilometres apart.