A tilt-wing VTOL UAV configuration study: flight dynamics modeling, simulation, states estimation, control, systems integration and flight testing

• Autor(a) principal: Daud Filho, Antonio Carlos
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/18/18161/tde-27032023-153150/
• topic: controle de voo; equações de movimento multi-corpos; filtro de Kalman; flight control; flight testing; Kalman filter; multi-body equations of motion; simulação; simulation; testes de voo; transition flight; UAV; UAV; voo de transição; VTOL; VTOL

This thesis presents a vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VTOL UAV) configuration. It has the capacity to tilt the canard and wing along with two attached propellers. Additionally, there are two fixed front propellers pointing upwards. A multi-body equations of motion are derived for this concept of aircraft, which are used to compute the flight transition trajectory from hover to cruise configuration. Furthermore, a transition control algorithm based on gain scheduling is described, which stabilizes the aircraft while it accelerates from hover to cruise, gradually tilting the wing along with the propellers, sequentially switching between equilibrium states. The transition control algorithm is numerically simulated for the conceptual aircraft model. An aircraft prototype is designed and built. States estimation algorithms based on the discrete Kalman filter are derived in order to compute the aircraft flight states from the on-board sensors measurements. Controls algorithms are described for possible flight configurations: hovering configuration with attitude control, attitude plus altitude controls, attitude plus altitude plus position control, and transition flight control. The algorithms were written in C programming language, and embedded in the prototype on-board Arduino Due microcontroller board. Flight tests were successfully conducted in an indoor and outdoor environment for the hovering configuration, the flight states were transmitted and saved in a ground station, so the flight tests results are presented and discussed.