Enhanced Drone Control Using Reinforcement Learning /

By Moin, Hassan . . 101p. , Quadcopters have already proven their effectiveness in both civilian and military applications. Their control, however, is a difficult task due to their under-actuated, highly nonlinear, and coupled dynamics. Most quadcopter autopilot systems utilize cascaded control schemes, where the outer loop handles mission-level objectives in 3D Euclidean space, and the inner loop is responsible for stability and control. Such complex systems are generally operated using PID controllers, which have demonstrated exceptional performance in multiple scenarios, such as obstacle avoidance, trajectory tracking and path planning. However, tuning their gains for nonlinear systems using heuristics or rulebased methods is a tedious, time-consuming and difficult task. Rapid advances in the field of computational engineering, on the other hand, have paved way for intelligent flight control systems, which have become an important area of study addressing the limits of PID control, most recently through the application of reinforcement learning (RL). In this dissertation, an optimal gain auto-tuning strategy is implemented for altitude, attitude, and position controllers of a 6 DoF nonlinear drone system using a deep actor-critic RL algorithm having continuous observation and action spaces. The state equations are derived using Lagrange’s (energy-based) method, while the drone’s aerodynamic coefficients are estimated numerically using blade element momentum theory. Furthermore, the cascaded closed loop system’s asymptotic stability is studied using the theory of Lyapunov. Finally, the proposed strategy is validated by simulation results, where the gains learned by RL agents allow the quadcopter to track a given trajectory accurately. Moreover, these optimal gains satisfy the conditions obtained through Lyapunov’s stability analysis, indicating that the RL algorithm is an extremely powerful tool which can assess uncertainties existing within any complex nonlinear system 30cm.

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Addressing the Problem of Sloshing in a Liquid Carrying Mobile Robot through Artificial Intelligence /

By Khan, Khubaib Haider . . 90p. , Liquid sloshing presents a critical challenge for mobile robots tasked with transporting partially filled containers, as it destabilizes motion, reduces accuracy, and increases the risk of spillage. Traditional passive and active control methods—such as baffles, PID, and LQR—are limited in adaptability and computational efficiency when faced with nonlinear, time-varying fluid–structure interactions. This thesis addresses these challenges by formulating slosh suppression as a reinforcement learning problem, leveraging the Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) algorithm integrated with a surrogate ball-in-container analogy in the Webots simulator. The surrogate transforms complex liquid dynamics into a tractable cart-pole inspired system, enabling efficient training of robust control policies without reliance on high-fidelity but computationally expensive CFD models. A custom simulation–learning pipeline was developed, coupling Webots with a PyTorchbased TD3 agent via JSON-based communication. State and action spaces were defined using the ball’s displacement ratio and robot velocity, while a multi-component reward function balanced slosh minimization, forward progress, and smooth energy-efficient motion. Training results demonstrated that the TD3 agent learned to achieve stable, sloshfree navigation over a 10 m trajectory, outperforming traditional controllers and earlier RL variants in stability and adaptability. Results shows that the Model Learns well after 600 Episodes attaining optimal velocity of 1.25 – 0.5 m/s keeping ball within 2 mm limit, maximizing the reward to around 1180 at 1700 Episodes, eventually reducing sloshing by 65 % during Training phase. While, during Test phase robot is tested for 0 to 4 m/s velocity with control and no control scenarios, showing the results RL algorithm suppress the ball displacement (liquid slosh) by approximately 45 %. The study validates reinforcement learning as a viable paradigm for real-time liquid slosh suppression in robotics, offering superior robustness and scalability. Contributions include an AI-driven control framework for slosh suppression, integrationxvii of surrogate modeling with DRL for real-time feasibility, and a reward design framework encoding domain-specific stability objectives. For Further Future working it is recommended to include extending to real liquid models and hardware validation, adopting symmetric action spaces and advanced RL methods, and integrating slosh control with autonomous navigation in dynamic environments. 30cm.

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Enhanced Drone Control Using Reinforcement Learning /

Addressing the Problem of Sloshing in a Liquid Carrying Mobile Robot through Artificial Intelligence /