This paper investigates the coordinated trajectory tracking problem of multiple vertical takeooff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The case of unidirectional information flow is considered and the objective is to drive all the follower VTOL UAVs to accurately track the trajectory of the leader. Firstly, a novel distributed estimator is developed for each VTOL UAV to obtain th...

This paper describes the latest efforts to develop an Automated UAV Mission System (AUMS) for small vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). In certain applications such as force protection, perimeter security, and urban surveillance a VTOL UAV can provide far greater utility than fixed-wing UAVs or ground-based sensors. The VTOL UAV can operate much closer to an object...

A QTW VTOL UAV, featured tandem tilt wings and propellers mounted at the mid-span of each wing, is one of the most promising UAV configurations having both a VTOL capability and high cruise performance. A small prototype QTW UAV has been constructed to prove the concept and full transition between vertical and horizontal flight has been successfully demonstrated under remote manual control. The...

Contrary to the manned tailsitter aircraft concepts, which have been shelved and forgotten after mid 1960’s, the unmanned versions of these concepts have become popular. Since, tailsitter type UAVs combine both vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) operation and relatively high speed cruise flight capabilities which provide manifest advantages over the other VTOL aircraft concepts, including heli...

In this paper, we present the development of a reconfigurable hybrid unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV): U-Lion [Ang et al., 11th IEEE Int. Conf. Control Automation (ICCA), pp. 750–755]. U-Lion is a small-scale UAV that is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and fixedwing Cruise modes through its unique mechanical design. Mainly built with carbon fiber and expanded polyolefin (EPO) foam, ...

The QTW VTOL UAV, which features tandem tilt wings with propellers mounted at the mid-span of each wing, is one of the most promising UAV configurations, having both VTOL capability and high cruise performance. A six-degree-of-freedom dynamic simulation model covering the full range of the QTW flight envelope was developed and a flight control system including a transition schedule and a stabil...

In this paper, two techniques to control UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), based on visual information are presented. The first one is based on the detection and tracking of planar structures from an on-board camera, while the second one is based on the detection and 3D reconstruction of the position of the UAV based on an external camera system. Both strategies are tested with a VTOL (Vertical ...

There have been many advancements in the field of aerospace and avionics. Scientists have increasingly started to focus on VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircrafts. We have built a miniature VTOL twinrotor UAV. UAVs have begun to grab a lot of attention these days due to its numerous applications such as surveillance and relief. Twinrotor is a kind of a helicopter having two main propelle...

Acceleration is of great importance in motion control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially during the takeoff and landing stages. However, the measured acceleration is inevitably polluted by severe noise. Therefore, a proper noise suppression procedure is required. This paper presents a novel method to reduce the noise in the measured vertical acceleration for a thrust-vectored tail-...

Research into the autonomy of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and especially on Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) systems has intensified significantly in recent years. This paper develops a generic model of a VTOL UAV in symbolic form. The novelty of this work stems from the designed Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm based on this symbolic model. The MPC algorithm is compared ...