Autonomous aerobatic flight of a fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle
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Date
2007-03
Authors
Hough, Willem J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
This thesis relates to the successful development of a flight control system to perform a range of
aerobatic manoeuvres autonomously. The project is the first to try to extend the flight control
capabilities of the Computer and Control group at the University of Stellenbosch.
A simplified mathematical aircraft model is developed which encapsulates the important dy-
namic characteristics of the airframe. It is demonstrated how computational fluid dynamics
software can be used to calculate the stability and control derivatives of a conventional air-
frame.
A vehicle independent kinematic state estimator is presented and used to obtain the complete
aircraft state vector. The estimator makes use of extended Kalman filter theory to combine a
series of low quality sensor measurements in an optimal manner. A model predictive control
strategy is then used to regulate the aircraft about arbitrary, time variant trajectories. The
controller’s architecture is not in any way specific to the aerobatic manoeuvres demonstrated in
this project.
The avionics and ground station used for the implementation of the estimator and control
algorithms are presented. The development of a hardware in the loop simulator is discussed and
used to verify the correct implementation of the respective algorithms. Finally, practical results
from two days of flight tests are presented.
Description
Thesis (MScEng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007.
Keywords
Flight control, Drone aircraft, Airplanes -- Piloting, Dissertations -- Electronic engineering, Theses -- Electronic engineering