Flight control system for a variable stabilityblended-wing-body unmanned aerial vehicle

[摘要] This thesis presents the analysis, design, simulation and practical implementation of anovel control system for a variable stability blended-wing-body unmanned aerial vehicle.The aircraft has a moveable centre of mass that allows it to operate in an aerodynamicallyoptimised minimum drag configuration during cruise flight. The primarypurpose of the control system is thus to regain nominal static stability for all centre ofmass positions, and then to further regulate motion variables for autonomous way pointnavigation. A thorough analysis of the parameters affected by the varying centre of massposition leads to the identification of the main control problem. It is shown that a recentlypublished acceleration based control methodology can be used with minor modificationto elegantly solve the variable stability control problem. After providing the details ofthe control system design, the customised avionics used for their practical implementationare presented. The results of extensive hardware in the loop simulations verify thefunctionality of the controllers. Finally, flight test results illustrate the practical successof the autopilot and clearly show how the control system is capable of controlling thevariable stability aircraft at centre of mass locations where a human pilot could not.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University