Abstract
This paper presents the design of a symmetrical quad-rotor biplane tail-sitter VTOL UAV (Vertical Take-off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) which is composed of four rotors and two symmetrically mounted fixed wings. This aircraft achieves high accuracy in the attitude control and smooth flight mode transition with four rotors rather than the conventional VTOL UAVs using control surfaces. The proposal of angled rotor mounting is adopted to address the issue of insufficient yaw control authority. The layout of symmetrically mounted fixed wings makes the aircraft have capability of rapid bidirectional flight mode transition to improve maneuverability. To validate the performance of the aircraft, simulation and flight experiments are both implemented. These results show that the aircraft has a rapid yaw response under condition of the stable attitude control. In comparative experiment, it is shown that the aircraft is more flexible than other similar configuration of aircrafts. This symmetrical quad-rotor biplane tail-sitter VTOL UAV will have a wide range of potential applications in the military and civilian areas due to its superior performance..
Highlights
In recent years, the potential uses for UAVs have increased drastically
At present, according to different ways to achieve flight mode transition, VTOL aircrafts may be categorized as tilt-rotor, tilt-wing, tail-sitter aircrafts, et al [3,4,5,6]
Kita developed a simple tail-sitter VTOL UAV with a single propeller R/C airplane [9]. These tail-sitter aircrafts which are developed based on fixed-wing aircrafts, have an accuracy drawback in the attitude control for stationary hovering because of the use of control surfaces, such as aileron, elevator, and rudder
Summary
The potential uses for UAVs have increased drastically. These applications include but not limited to surveillance, rescue and reconnaissance, as well as medical supply, consumer package delivery and power line inspection [1]. Kita developed a simple tail-sitter VTOL UAV with a single propeller R/C airplane [9] These tail-sitter aircrafts which are developed based on fixed-wing aircrafts, have an accuracy drawback in the attitude control for stationary hovering because of the use of control surfaces, such as aileron, elevator, and rudder. The cambered wing makes those aircrafts have different aerodynamic efficiency when they achieve bidirectional flight mode transition, which causes that they are inflexible To address these issues above, a new symmetrical quad-rotor biplane configuration tail-sitter VTOL UAV is proposed. This aircraft realizes high accuracy in attitude control and smooth flight mode transition with four rotors. A comparative experiment with quad-rotor monoplane and asymmetrical quad-rotor biplane is implemented to evaluate the maneuverability of the aircraft
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