Modelling, Control, and Experimental Evaluation of the Hovering Characteristics of a Tilt-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract: A Tilt-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TW-UAV) and the preliminary evaluation of its hovering characteristics in extended simulation studies and experiments are presented in this Master Thesis. In the beginning, an overview of the TW-UAV's design properties are established, highlighting the novelties of the proposed structure and the overall merits. The TW-UAV's design and structural properties are mathematically modelled and utilized for the synthesis of a cascaded P-PI and PID based control structure for the regulation of its hovering performance. In addition, extensive simulation trials are performed in order to evaluate the structure's efficiency in controlling the TW-UAV's attitude and position under various noise and disturbance scenarios. The model and aircraft are then put through experimental evaluation with an on-board processor, namely the KFly, in a Motion-capture equipped laboratory to evaluate the control structure and physical behaviour of the TW-UAV. The results of these experiments are presented and discussed. The system and control scheme are shown to work well. However, an unfortunate crash forced the premature termination of experimentation and thus the conclusion of this thesis. Nevertheless, the reason for the crash is understood and discussed for future work.