Robust μ-synthesis Loop Shaping for Altitude Flight Dynamics of a Flying-Wing Airframe

In this paper we present a centralised flightby-wire system based on μ-synthesis approach to the longitudinal flight motion of our experimental flying wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), P15035 aircraft. The challenge associated with our UAV is related to the fact that all motions of our UAV are controlled by two independently-actuated-ailerons, together with its throttle. The first reason for considering μ-synthesis autopilot is to minimise the effects of uncertainty in modelling particularly within the bandwidth of the system. Second, it also provides flexibility in tunning due to the absence of partitioning model of MIMO system. Thus, the autopilot can be designed by keeping the system model as a whole. In terms of our technical contribution, we also perform a comparative study with respect to the well-known H∞ autopilot. Our study indicates that our μ-synthesis F. Santoso ( ) Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia e-mail: [email protected] M. Liu Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031 China F. Santoso · M. Liu · G. K. Egan Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3800, Australia autopilot demonstrates reasonably better performances both in time and frequency domains as indicated by rapid settling time without overshoots while still maintaining a superior robust stability