DesignLab
  • Departamento de Engenharia Mecatrônica
    Escola Politécnica - Universidade de São Paulo

Transition Flight of a Concept of Lifting-Wing Quadcopter

Daud Filho, A.C. ; Siilva, E.C.N. ; SILVA, J. R. ; Caurin, G. ; Belo, E.M.

Journal 
The Aeronautical Journal. 
Autor 
Daud Filho, A.C. ; Siilva, E.C.N. ; SILVA, J. R. ; Caurin, G. ; Belo, E.M. 
Book Title 
 
Volume 
128 
Página(s) 
 
DOI 
 
Published 
2024 
Month 
 
Tipo de Documento 
Working paper 
Abstract 
This paper presents the concept of a lifting-wing quadcopter UAV, a vertical take-off and landing vehicle (VTOL) with a rear wing, a canard at its front, and four propellers. The aerodynamic surfaces are designed so that their mounting angle can be adjusted and fixed prior to flight, so its performance in transition flight can be studied for a combination of wing and canard mounting angles. A dynamic model using rigid-body equations of motion is presented, which are used to compute the transition flight trajectory from hover to cruise in horizontal flight. The trim conditions were computed for a range of fixed wing and canard mounting angles to study the effects of these variables on transition trajectory parameters such as required power, body pitch angle, and propeller rotation speeds as a function of flight speed. Furthermore, a transition flight control algorithm is presented, which has a cascaded PID controller and a reference scheduler to switch between the proper reference states, controls, and control allocation matrix. Finally, the transition control algorithm of the conceptual UAV is numerically simulated. 
Keywords 
 
Publisher 
Cambridge Univ. Press 
URL