Summary
This paper details the control and guidance architecture for the T-Wing tail-sitter unmanned air vehicle, (UAV). The vehicle uses a mixture of classical and LQR controllers for its numerous low-level and guidance control loops. Different controllers are used for the vertical, horizontal and transition flight modes, glued together with supervisory mode-switching logic. This allows the vehicle to achieve autonomous waypoint navigation throughout its flight-envelope. The control design for the T-Wing is complicated by the large differences in vehicle dynamics between vertical and horizontal flight; the difficulty of accurately predicting the low-speed vehicle aerodynamics; and the basic instability of the vertical flight mode. This paper considers the control design problem for the T-Wing in light of these factors. In particular it focuses on the integration of all the different types and levels of controllers in a full flight-vehicle control system.
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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Stone, R.H. (2006). Control and Guidance for a Tail-Sitter Unmanned Air Vehicle. In: Corke, P., Sukkariah, S. (eds) Field and Service Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 25. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33453-8_38
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33453-8_38
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-33452-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-33453-8
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