Validation of Quad Tail-sitter VTOL UAV Model in Fixed Wing Mode

Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) is a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is growing rapidly because its ability to take off and land anywhere in tight spaces. One type of VTOL UAV, the tail-sitter, has the best efficiency. However, besides the efficiency offered, some challenges must still be overcome, including the complexity of combining the ability to hover like a helicopter and fly horizontally like a fixed-wing aircraft. This research has two contributions: in the form of how the analytical model is generated and the tools used (specifically for the small VTOL quad tail-sitter UAV) and how to utilize off-the-shelf components for UAV empirical modeling. This research focuses on increasing the speed and accuracy of the UAV VTOL control design in fixed-wing mode. The first step is to carry out analysis and simulation. The model is analytically obtained using OpenVSP in longitudinal and lateral modes. The next step is to realize this analytical model for both the aircraft and the controls. The third step is to measure the flight characteristics of the aircraft. Based on the data recorded during flights, an empirical model is made using system identification technique. The final step is to vali-date the analytical model with the empirical model. The results show that the characteristics of the analytical mode fulfill the specified requirements and are close to the empirical model. Thus, it can be concluded that the analytical model can be implemented directly, and consequently, the VTOL UAV design and development process has been shortened

Multi-agent Collision Avoidance Using Interval Analysis and Symbolic Modelling with its Application to the Novel Polycopter

Coordination is fundamental component of autonomy when a system is defined by multiple mobile agents. For unmanned aerial systems (UAS), challenges originate from their low-level systems, such as their flight dynamics, which are often complex. The thesis begins by examining these low-level dynamics in an analysis of several well known UAS using a novel symbolic component-based framework. It is shown how this approach is used effectively to define key model and performance properties necessary of UAS trajectory control. This is demonstrated initially under the context of linear quadratic regulation (LQR) and model predictive control (MPC) of a quadcopter. The symbolic framework is later extended in the proposal of a novel UAS platform, referred to as the ``Polycopter" for its morphing nature. This dual-tilt axis system has unique authority over is thrust vector, in addition to an ability to actively augment its stability and aerodynamic characteristics. This presents several opportunities in exploitative control design. With an approach to low-level UAS modelling and control proposed, the focus of the thesis shifts to investigate the challenges associated with local trajectory generation for the purpose of multi-agent collision avoidance. This begins with a novel survey of the state-of-the-art geometric approaches with respect to performance, scalability and tolerance to uncertainty. From this survey, the interval avoidance (IA) method is proposed, to incorporate trajectory uncertainty in the geometric derivation of escape trajectories. The method is shown to be more effective in ensuring safe separation in several of the presented conditions, however performance is shown to deteriorate in denser conflicts. Finally, it is shown how by re-framing the IA problem, three dimensional (3D) collision avoidance is achieved. The novel 3D IA method is shown to out perform the original method in three conflict cases by maintaining separation under the effects of uncertainty and in scenarios with multiple obstacles. The performance, scalability and uncertainty tolerance of each presented method is then examined in a set of scenarios resembling typical coordinated UAS operations in an exhaustive Monte-Carlo analysis

Proceedings of the International Micro Air Vehicles Conference and Flight Competition 2017 (IMAV 2017)

The IMAV 2017 conference has been held at ISAE-SUPAERO, Toulouse, France from Sept. 18 to Sept. 21, 2017. More than 250 participants coming from 30 different countries worldwide have presented their latest research activities in the field of drones. 38 papers have been presented during the conference including various topics such as Aerodynamics, Aeroacoustics, Propulsion, Autopilots, Sensors, Communication systems, Mission planning techniques, Artificial Intelligence, Human-machine cooperation as applied to drones

A Summary of NASA Rotary Wing Research: Circa 20082018

The general public may not know that the first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics. If they do know, they will very likely be surprised that in addition to airplanes, the A includes research in helicopters, tiltrotors, and other vehicles adorned with rotors. There is, arguably, no subsonic air vehicle more difficult to accurately analyze than a vehicle with lift-producing rotors. No wonder that NASA has conducted rotary wing research since the days of the NACA and has partnered, since 1965, with the U.S. Army in order to overcome some of the most challenging obstacles to understanding the behavior of these vehicles. Since 2006, NASA rotary wing research has been performed under several different project names [Gorton et al., 2015]: Subsonic Rotary Wing (SRW) (20062012), Rotary Wing (RW) (20122014), and Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) (2014present). In 2009, the SRW Project published a report that assessed the status of NASA rotorcraft research; in particular, the predictive capability of NASA rotorcraft tools was addressed for a number of technical disciplines. A brief history of NASA rotorcraft research through 2009 was also provided [Yamauchi and Young, 2009]. Gorton et al. [2015] describes the system studies during 20092011 that informed the SRW/RW/RVLT project investment prioritization and organization. The authors also provided the status of research in the RW Project in engines, drive systems, aeromechanics, and impact dynamics as related to structural dynamics of vertical lift vehicles. Since 2009, the focus of research has shifted from large civil VTOL transports, to environmentally clean aircraft, to electrified VTOL aircraft for the urban air mobility (UAM) market. The changing focus of rotorcraft research has been a reflection of the evolving strategic direction of the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD). By 2014, the project had been renamed the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Project. In response to the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan, ARMD developed six Strategic Thrusts. Strategic Thrust 3B was defined as the Ultra-Efficient Commercial VehiclesVertical Lift Aircraft. Hochstetler et al. [2017] uses Thrust 3B as an example for developing metrics usable by ARMD to measure the effectiveness of each of the Strategic Thrusts. The authors provide near-, mid-, and long-term outcomes for Thrust 3B with corresponding benefits and capabilities. The importance of VTOL research, especially with the rapidly expanding UAM market, eventually resulted in a new Strategic Thrust (to begin in 2020): Thrust 4Safe, Quiet, and Affordable Vertical Lift Air Vehicles. The underlying rotary wing analysis tools used by NASA are still applicable to traditional rotorcraft and have been expanded in capability to accommodate the growing number of VTOL configurations designed for UAM. The top-level goal of the RVLT Project remains unchanged since 2006: Develop and validate tools, technologies and concepts to overcome key barriers for vertical lift vehicles. In 2019, NASA rotary wing/VTOL research has never been more important for supporting new aircraft and advancements in technology. 2 A decade is a reasonable interval to pause and take stock of progress and accomplishments. In 10 years, digital technology has propelled progress in computational efficiency by orders of magnitude and expanded capabilities in measurement techniques. The purpose of this report is to provide a compilation of the NASA rotary wing research from ~2008 to ~2018. Brief summaries of publications from NASA, NASA-funded, and NASA-supported research are provided in 12 chapters: Acoustics, Aeromechanics, Computational Fluid Dynamics (External Flow), Experimental Methods, Flight Dynamics and Control, Drive Systems, Engines, Crashworthiness, Icing, Structures and Materials, Conceptual Design and System Analysis, and Mars Helicopter. We hope this report serves as a useful reference for future NASA vertical lift researchers

Aerodynamic force interactions and measurements for micro quadrotors

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become mainstream through the success of several large commercial drone manufacturers. Quadrotors have been widely adopted due to their mechanical simplicity, ability to take off from a small area and hover at a fixed location. As these aircraft are increasingly being used in urban environments and indoors their ability to maintain stable flight in the presence of disturbances and nearby obstacles is of growing importance.Understanding the aerodynamics acting in these environments is the first step to improving quadrotor behaviour. This presents a challenge, as to characterise and verify models of the aerodynamic phenomena it is essential to collect numerous consistent experimental data points. On a typical quadrotor the motor response changes as the battery discharges, leading to variation in flight performance. Typically, this is addressed through the use high gain feedback control regulating attitude and position. To overcome this a unique voltage regulator for quadrotor power was developed to maintain constant supply voltage over the quadrotors flight. This enables the quadrotor to produce consistent and repeatable behaviour as the battery discharges.One way to improve the performance of quadrotors flying in constrained environments with limited sensing is to exploit aerodynamic effects for passive control and stability. Ground effect and rotor inflow damping are two effects of interest: ground effect provides a quadratic increase in thrust as a rotor moves closer to the ground; rotor inflow damping acts to resist axial motion by causing a change thrust opposing the movement. By canting the rotors of a quadrotor these effects were brought from the vertical axis into the lateral axis as well. A canted quadrotor flying over a v-shaped channel was modeled and found to exhibit passive stability in position. A demonstrator aircraft and v-shaped channel were tested in a number of configurations and shown to be stable for a channel slope of 10, 15 or 20 degrees with a rotor cant of 15 or 20 degrees.In order to observe more subtle aerodynamic effects, such as wall effect, it is necessary to have a method to measure rotor forces directly during quadrotor flight. Existing force torque sensors are too bulky, heavy, expensive or insensitive. To overcome these limitations a novel force torque sensor was developed that costs less than $50, weighs 3g and is capable of measuring sub mN forces. These sensors utilise an array of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) barometers encapsulated in rubber to measure the strain field imparted by forces acting on the attached load plate. Mounting force torque sensors under the motors of a quadrotor allows the lateral rotor forces to be transmitted through the motor body and measured as torques at the base.Closely related to this, one of the key limitations faced by quadrotors is their inability to directly measure the airspeed of the aircraft. Providing an oncoming wind speed measurement will allow them to compensate for disturbances improving trajectory tracking and gust rejection. Blade flapping and induced drag are aerodynamic phenomena which relate lateral motion to a force acting in opposition to the rotors motion. By measuring this force using a rotor force sensor the airspeed of the aircraft is computed directly using induced drag and rotor blade flapping models. It was found that lateral velocity could be measured for the velocities tested, up to 1.5m/s, and showed a strong linear relationship to ground truth measurements.The work of this thesis has led to the development of: a quadrotor platform for consistent flight behaviour; a passive position-keeping quadrotor; and a novel rotor force sensor for direct measurement of quadrotor airspeed. These technologies open up avenues to improve the flight performance of quadrotors and better understand subtle aerodynamic interactions in flight

Input and State Estimation for Discrete-Time Linear Systems with Application to Target Tracking and Fault Detection

This dissertation first presents a deterministic treatment of discrete-time input reconstruction and state estimation without assuming the existence of a full-rank Markov parameter. Algorithms based on the generalized inverse of a block-Toeplitz matrix are given for 1) input reconstruction in the case where the initial state is known; 2) state estimation in the case where the initial state is unknown, the system has no invariant zeros, and the input is unknown; and 3) input reconstruction and state estimation in the case where the initial state is unknown and the system has no invariant zeros. In all cases, the unknown input is an arbitrary deterministic or stochastic signal. In addition, the reconstruction/estimation algorithm is deadbeat, which means that, in the absence of sensor noise, exact input reconstruction and state estimation are achieved in a finite number of steps. Next, asymptotic input and state estimation for systems with invariant zeros is considered. Although this problem has been widely studied, existing techniques are confined to the case where the system is minimum phase. This dissertation presents retrospective cost input estimation (RCIE), which is based on retrospective cost optimization. It is shown that RCIE automatically develops an internal model of the unknown input. This internal model provides an asymptotic estimate of the unknown input regardless of the location of the zeros of the plant, including the case of nonminimum-phase dynamics. The input and state estimation method developed in this dissertation provides a novel approach to a longstanding problem in target tracking, namely, estimation of the inertial acceleration of a body using only position measurements. It turns out that, for this problem, the discretized kinematics have invariant zeros on the unit circle, and thus the dynamics is nonminimum-phase. Using optical position data for a UAV, RCIE estimates the inertial acceleration, which is modeled as an unknown input. The acceleration estimates are compared to IMU data from onboard sensors. Finally, based on exact kinematic models for input and state estimation, this dissertation presents a method for detecting sensor faults. A numerical investigation using the NASA Generic Transport Model shows that the method can detect stuck, bias, drift, and deadzone sensor faults. Furthermore, a laboratory experiment shows that RCIE can estimate the inertial acceleration (3-axis accelerometer measurements) and angular velocity (3-axis rate-gyro measurements) of a quadrotor using vision data; comparing these estimates to the actual accelerometer and rate-gyro measurements provide the means for assessing the health of the accelerometer and rate gyro.PHDAerospace EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145813/1/ansahmad_1.pd