Improving the landing control capability of blended wing body
configuration solar-powered UAVs by using swallow tail and distributed
propellers
Abstract
Aiming at the problem of weak yawing controllability of solar-powered
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with low-speed and high aspect-ratio
Blended Wing Body (BWB) configuration, based on the large-scale
aerodynamic characteristics of the biomimetic swallow tail, the
influence of different opening methods and angles of the swallow tail on
the aerodynamic characteristics and stability and controllability of an
UAV was derived. The mechanism of the higher yawing control efficiency
of the differential throttle compared to the conventional rudder is
analyzed in order to significantly decrease the control efficiency at
small throttle. We innovatively propose a yawing control method
combining the opening of the swallow tail to a moderately separation
state of local airflow and we validate it for the case of the landing
control of a solar-powered UAV. The flight dynamics mode characteristics
show that this control method has little impact on the
lateral-directional stability of the UAV and that the control efficiency
can be reserved to the same level of cruise state. Therefore, the
control law of cruise state can be applied to landing state with swallow
tail open directly, which enhances the lateral-directional control
ability of the UAVs in a simple but efficiently way. Flight simulation
and flight test results show that the proposed bionic control method of
the swallow tail combined with differential throttle can effectively
enhance the landing control ability of the UAVs, improve the response
speed, and reduce the trajectory error.