Rolling flight control using pseudo inverse control allocation for UAVs with multiple seamless warping control surfaces

Abstract

In this paper, investigation has been made into the rolling control system design for an unmanned aerial vehicle of flexible warping wing. The research is focus on the design of control laws and control allocator for the aircraft rolling by actively operating several pairs of unconventional seamless flexible leading and trailing edge control surfaces. The first step is to design the control laws, which provide the total control command; the second step is to design a control allocator that distribute the total control command for each individual control surface. The main challenge is how to specify the rolling rate of the aerial vehicle with the control effectiveness of each control surface varying non-linearly with the flight speed and angle of attack. An iteration method of pseudo inverse allocation is investigated to map the control command varying with the flight speed to achieve the rolling control target.