Full envelope control of over-actuated fixed-wing vectored thrust eVTOL

Date published

2024-11-27

Free to read from

2024-12-13

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

MDPI

Department

Type

Article

ISSN

2226-4310

Format

Citation

Enenakpogbe E, Whidborne JF, Lu L. (2024) Full envelope control of over-actuated fixed-wing vectored thrust eVTOL. Aerospace, Volume 11, Issue 12, November 2024, Article number 979

Abstract

A novel full-envelope controller for an over-actuated fixed-wing vectored thrust eVTOL aircraft is presented. It proposes a generic control architecture, which is applicable to piloted, semi-automatic, and fully automated flight, consisting of an aircraft-level controller (high-level controller) and a control allocation scheme. The aircraft-level controller consists of a main inner loop classical nonlinear dynamic inversion controller and an outer loop proportional–integral linear controller. The inner loop nonlinear dynamic inversion controller is a velocity controller that cancels the nonlinear bare airframe dynamics, while the outer loop proportional–integral linear controller is an attitude and navigation position controller. Together, they are used for hover/low-speed control and forward flight. The control allocation scheme uses a novel architecture, which transfers the nonlinearity in the vectored thrust effector model formulation to the computation of the actuator limits by converting the effector model from polar to rectangular form, thus allowing the use of classical control allocation linear optimisation technique. The linear optimisation technique is an active set linear quadratic programming constrained optimisation algorithm with a weighted least squares formulation. The control allocation allocates the overall control demand (virtual controls) to individual redundant effectors while performing control error minimisation, control channel prioritisation and control effort minimisation. Simulation results show the transition from hover to cruise, climb and descent, and coordinated turn clearly demonstrate that the controller can handle actuator saturation (position or rate).

Description

Software Description

Software Language

Github

Keywords

4007 Control Engineering, Mechatronics and Robotics, 40 Engineering, 4001 Aerospace Engineering, 4010 Engineering Practice and Education, 4001 Aerospace engineering

DOI

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Attribution 4.0 International

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