Real-Time Nonlinear Control Allocation Framework for Vehicles with Highly Nonlinear Effectors Subject to Saturation

Hybrid Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAV are vehicles capable of take-off and landing vertically like helicopters while maintaining the long-range efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft. Unfortunately, due to their wing area, these vehicles are sensitive to wind gusts when hovering. One way to increase the hovering wind-rejection capabilities of hybrid...

Autonomous Control for Orographic Soaring of Fixed-Wing UAVs

We present a novel controller for fixed-wing UAVs that enables autonomous soaring in an orographic wind field, extending flight endurance. Our method identifies soaring regions and addresses position control challenges by introducing a target gradient line (TGL) on which the UAV achieves an equilibrium soaring position, where sink rate and...

Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion controller for a Variable Skew Quad Plane

This paper presents the design of an Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) controller for the novel, patent pending (NL 2031701) platform Variable Skew Quad Plane (VSQP). Part of the identified challenges is the development of a model for the actuator effectiveness and lift especially as a function of skew, the newly added degree of...

INDI Control for the ObliqueWing-Quad Plane Drone

A type of UAV sharing the advantages of rotorcraft and fixed wing vehicles is the hybrid vehicle. Hybrid UAVs can take-off and land vertically and fly fast and efficient in forward flight due to the presence of a wing generating lift. However, combining the fixed wing and rotorcraft concept ends up in a multi-rotor with large dimensions when...

Design and joint control of a conjoined biplane and quadrotor

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have the potential to perform many different missions, some of which may require a large aircraft for endurance and a small aircraft for manoeuvrability in a building. This paper proposes a novel combination of a quadrotor and a hybrid biplane capable of joint hover, joint forward flight, and mid-air disassembly...

Dual-axis tilting rotor quad-plane design, simulation, flight and performance comparison with a conventional quad-plane design

In the last few decades, the UAV research has been focusing on hybrid vehicles with Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. Opposed to copters, hybrid vehicles are highly influenced by wind disturbances. This paper presents a novel quad-plane design that uses four dual-axis tilting rotors to enhance the wind rejection capability of...

Flight code convergence: fixedwing, rotorcraft, hybrid

Rotorcraft, fixed wing and hybrid Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) each have applications in which they excel. Traditionally, dedicated autopilot control code is written to accommodate flight of each UAV type. This causes fragmentation of control code and may lead to performance differences or errors. In this paper, we propose to use the same INDI...

Design and Testing of a Vertical Take-Off and Landing UAV Optimized for Carrying a Hydrogen Fuel Cell with a Pressure Tank

Flight endurance is still a bottleneck for many types of unmanned air vehicle (UAV) applications. While battery technology improves over the years, for flights that last an entire day, batteries are still insufficient. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells offer an interesting alternative but pose stringent requirements on the platform. The required...

Modelling of a Hybrid UAV Using Test Flight Data

The concept of an aircraft capable of both hover as well as fast forward flight (hybrid) has recently been implemented on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Hybrid UAVs combine hover capability with long range and endurance. As UAVs are often required to operate without human intervention, there is a call for autonomous guidance of hybrid UAVs....

Modelling of a Hybrid UAV Using Test Flight Data

The concept of an aircraft capable of both hover as well as fast forward flight (hybrid) has recently been implemented on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Hybrid UAVs combine hover capability with long range and endurance. As UAVs are often required to operate without human intervention, there is a call for autonomous guidance of hybrid UAVs....