Design of an autonomous flight control system for imitation falcon flapping-wing aircraft

Abstract

Bionic flapping-wing aircraft is a new type of aircraft with broad application prospects in the civil and military fields due to their low noise, good concealment, strong maneuverability, and high energy efficiency. The autonomous flying ability of bionic flapping-wing aircraft is the key to improving their flight efficiency. Although autonomous flight research on aircraft at home and abroad have made some achievements, few researchers have conducted corresponding studies on bionic flapping-wing aircraft. The unique driving structure of the bionic flapping-wing aircraft introduces great challenges to research on its autonomous flight control. In this paper, an autonomous flight control system is designed on the research platform of falcon flapping-wing aircraft. In consideration of the load problem of falcon flapping-wing aircraft, the hardware system is designed based on an STM32 microchip. A linear/nonlinear switching guidance algorithm is proposed considering the guidance accuracy and operation speed, due to the limited computing power of microcomputing platforms. Simulations prove that the proposed algorithm is more suitable for imitation falcon flapping-wing aircraft than linear guidance and nonlinear guidance algorithms. A cascade PID controller for roll angle and height is designed in consideration of the mechanism lag of falcon flapping-wing aircraft. By using this approach combined with ground station software for the imitation falcon flapping-wing aircraft, the task of autonomous fixed-height arc trajectory tracking based on imitation falcon flapping-wing aircraft is finally realized.