Design and Experimental Study of an Embedded Controller for a Model-Based Controllable Pitch Propeller

Abstract

The controllable pitch propeller hydraulic system has high constraints and nonlinearity. Due to these inherent deficiencies, the proportional–integral–derivative (PID) control algorithm cannot meet the control accuracy requirements of nonlinear systems. A control law based on a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm is designed in this paper. The gain parameters of the predictive control are optimized. The MPC and PID control systems are compared and simulated to verify the MPC controller’s effectiveness. Subsequently, the embedded controller of a controllable pitch propeller is developed. The support package for the embedded circuit board target containing an underlying driver for each interface is written by introducing the C-MEX S-Function and TLC programming language. A semi-physical simulation experiment is performed. The results show that the established controllable pitch propeller with an embedded controller displays reliable running performance, good anti-interference, and the capacity to fulfill the control function of the pitch propeller under various working conditions.

Keywords

• controllable pitch propeller
• embedded controller
• semi-physical simulation experiment
• model predictive control