Nonlinear model predictive control and guidance for a propeller-tilting hybrid unmanned air vehicle

Hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide an interesting combination of the vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities rotary-wing (RW) efficient forward flight fixed-wing (FW) vehicles. The employed controllers must be able to handle highly nonlinear dynamics changing control authorities resulting from this combination, especially during transition between two modes. In paper, a model predictive (MPC) structure is designed applied tiltrotor convertible UAV. Full-flight envelope trajectory tracking optimal exploitation aircraft’s VTOL FW properties achieved. A common approach design set stable for various trim-points in make use Gain Scheduling (GS) or controller mixing, order select appropriate law given configuration. unified developed. MPC UAV whose derived presented. Thus, full-flight are achieved, without need switching scheduling policies. proposed multi-stage allocation handles actuators continuous manner efficiently distributes required actions propellers, tilt servos control-surfaces. feasibility performance novel successfully evaluated real-world experiments. Simulation results comparison with state-of-the-art approaches