FlightQM: a multi-agent system for the analysis of flight qualities

Abstract

The central objective of this paper is to describe the multi-actor system that was developed in order to support advances in flying quality research applied for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Different mathematical models were considered for conducting researches regarding the longitudinal flight with constant forward velocity, applicable for unmanned aerial vehicles. In the context of these models there is a high interest for numerical investigation related to the effect of neglecting nonlinearities as concerns the accuracy of the flying qualities prediction for different particular movements of the unattended flying vehicle around its centre of mass. Particularly, when the automatic flight control system fails, at any stage of the flight, it may lead to the occurrence of oscillatory movements, which may drastically affect the integrity of the aircraft, especially in the landing phase. Given the large amount of computational effort that could be required by the different numerical investigations, an agile and scalable solution, adaptable to different variations of the mathematical models, is required. The multi-actor solution presented in this paper was developed in relation with a set of initial execution scenarios, described for various flight conditions.