'Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Architecture'
Abstract
In this thesis, a hybrid vertical take off and landing unmanned air vehicle platform is designed and developed. The platform uses tricopter configuration for takeoff and landing while it uses its fixed wings for forward flight. Control algorithms are developed for the VTOL aircraft. For this purpose, first nonlinear simulation code is developed in Matlab/Simulink environment. The simulation uses the wind tunnel experimental data for the propellers and aerodynamic data obtained from a package program XFLR 5 that uses panel method. The controller uses Linear Quadratic Tracking (LQT) algorithms for vertical takeoff, transition and forward flight cases. For different flight phases, trim flight conditions are obtained and controllers are designed. During transition, weighted pseudo inverse and blended inverse control allocation methods are employed and simulation results are compared. The obtained controller gains are tuned in the lab test setup and flight tests are performed for vertical takeoff and landing flight, demonstrating acceptable flight performance.Thesis (M.S.) -- Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences. Aerospace Engineering
