Flight plan

摘要

Aerospace engineers at Imperial College London hope to develop a control technique that will enable unmanned aircraft to fly in formation autonomously. It will increase the speed of an advanced control technique known as model predictive control (MPC), in which the controller repeatedly updates in real-time its planned operation and chooses the best options, accounting for variables. The technology has previously been used in chemical refineries where, for example, a controller can be programmed to avoid exceeding a certain temperature and can adjust its operations if it is in danger of reaching the set limit. 'Predictive control is a new control technology because you are doing real-time optimisation as part of the control,' said Dr Paul Goulart, head of the project.