"Automatic control of unmanned vehicles using computational intelligence"

The objective of this PhD Thesis is related to the development of automatic control methods in order to create intelligent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Emphasis will be given to the study of quad-copters, as their control comprises a challenging task due to its dynamic behavior, which exhibits nonlinear, under-actuated and strongly coupled terms. Computational intelligence methods as fuzzy logic, neural networks, evolutionary computation and swarm intelligence will be used in order to provide elements of intelligence to the aerial vehicles. Special importance will be placed on the development of model predictive control (MPC) methods, and particularly in solving the optimization problem formulated during the implementation of an MPC controller using swarm intelligence methodologies and in developing new dynamic predictive models based on neural networks.