Unsteady aerodynamic modeling and control of pusher and tilt-rotor quadplane configurations

Govdeli, Yunus; Moheed Bin Muzaffar, Sheikh; Raj, Raunak; Elhadidi, Basman; Kayacan, Erdal

Abstract

A nonlinear unsteady aerodynamics model is coupled with a three degree of freedom quadplane to control the forward and backward transition between hover and steady level flight. The unsteady lift and drag forces are modeled using a lumped vortex model for flat plates. Two variants for the quadplane are considered: (i) a pusher and (ii) a tilt-rotor configuration in the absence of control surfaces to assess the controllability for altitude, attitude and forward speed. Conventional PID control is applied to generate the control inputs. The simulation results conclude that the pusher quadplane configuration is effortless to control as all the selected states are controllable, whereas for the tilt-rotor configuration, even though the vehicle is stable, altitude control is significantly more challenging due to one less control input when compared to the pusher configuration.

Citation

Govdeli, Y., Moheed Bin Muzaffar, S., Raj, R., Elhadidi, B., & Kayacan, E. (2019). Unsteady aerodynamic modeling and control of pusher and tilt-rotor quadplane configurations. Aerospace science and technology, 94, 105421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2019.105421

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Deposit Date: Nov 20, 2023
• Journal: Aerospace Science and Technology
• Print ISSN: 1270-9638
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 94
• Pages: 105421
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2019.105421
• Keywords: Aerospace Engineering