A comparison of control systems for the flight transition of VTOL unmanned aerial vehicles

[摘要] This thesis details the development of linear control systems that allow avertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle to perform transitionsbetween vertical and horizontal flight. Two mathematical models are derivedfor the control system design. A large non-linear model, describing allthe dynamics of the aircraft, is linearised in order to perform optimal controlusing linear quadratic regulator theory. Another model is decoupled usingtime scale separation to form separate rigid body and point mass dynamics.The decoupled model is controlled using classical control techniques. Simulationresults are used to judge the relative performance of the two controlschemes in several fields including: Trajectory tracking, sensitivity to parameters,computational complexity and ease of use.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University