Attitude and altitude stabilization of a fixed wing VTOL unmanned air vehicle

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to introduce an overview about the design, manufacturing and testing of a Hybrid Air Vehicle (HAV). The designed vehicle will have the ability to vertically takeoff and landing in addition to fly horizontally as a fixed wing aircraft. A remotely piloted model aircraft (E-Flite Apprentice Model Plane) is selected for the initial tests and it is modified for the current purpose. A thrust measurement setup is used to obtain the thrust characteristics of the motors which are used in the model aircraft for system identification. Another test stand is also designed and manufactured to test the servo motor responses at the control surfaces of the HAV. Inertia tensor of the HAV is obtained experimentally by means of bifilar pendulum test method. The wing of the aircraft will be tested in the 1m x 1mtest section wind tunnel of Aerospace Engineering Department of METU to obtain aerodynamic characteristics. By means of experimentally identified system parameters, the HAV is modeled in Matlab/Simulink environment mathematically. The HAV has three main operating modes such as vertical takeoff and landing, transition to fixed wing flight or vice versa, and fixed wing flight. Combinations of a Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Controller (LADRC) and a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) based control topologies will be designed for operating modes. To observe performance and enhance the developed system models and controllers, hardware in the loop tests will be done by means of a Flight Motion Simulator (FMS) of ROKETSAN Missile Inc. © 2016 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.