Сhoosing the architecture of the automatic control system of a convertible unmanned aerial vehicle – a tiltrotor

DOI: 10.34759/trd-2021-121-25

Аuthors

Apollonov D. V., Bibikova K. I.^*, Shibaev M. V., Gavrilova A. V.^*

Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky (TsAGI), 1, Zhukovsky str., Zhukovsky, Moscow Region, 140180, Russia

*e-mail: ccfstd@tsagi.ru

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been the research subject of several recent applications. This paper describes the flight dynamics simulation and automatic control system architecture development of the tilt-rotor UAV. This tape of vehicle combines the high-speed cruise flight capabilities of a conventional airplane with the hovering capabilities of a helicopter by tilting their four rotors. The paper presents a mathematical model of convertible unmanned aerial vehicle (tiltrotor) and the architecture of a unified automatic control system for all flight modes of the tiltrotor. The authors propose a control system structure that uses a limited set of »top-level» control parameters, including the total engines thrust and three moments acting on the UAV. The principle of forming the total thrust and moments by means of redundant set of »lower level» effectors, including engines orientation angles and each engine thrust, as well as aerodynamic control surfaces deflection, is determined. The possibility of using the proposed control principle is confirmed by the results of flight dynamics simulation of UAV executing a typical application scenario including vertical take-off and landing modes, flight along a given route and transient acceleration and deceleration modes. The paper considers the issues of assessing the safety of UAV flight in the event of possible individual control failures, taking into account the existing redundancy. A criterion for assessing controllability in the form of the maximum guaranteed angular acceleration is proposed which allows comparing the consequences of failures of each control effector. The paper shows that in order to guarantee UAV controllability we need to impose requirements on the choice of controller operational algorithms, both in the UAV angular motion control loop and in trajectory motion control loop.

Keywords:

mathematical model, tiltrotor, unmanned aerial vehicle, automatic control system, failure

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