Theoretical and Experimental Investigations of Gyroplane Jump Takeoff Dynamics

A nonlinear and time-varying gyroplane jump takeoff dynamics model considering the unsteady ground effect and the rapid blade-pitch increase(RBPI) is developed and validated against the experiment data.The precisions of the proposed model,an experienced Hollmann model and three other simplified models are compared by displaying the height and rpm time histories of those models and the experimental data.The mean square errors(MSE) of the height histories and maximum height errors(MHE) between those models are calculated and given out.The statistics provide a kind of evaluation method of importance of the unsteady ground effect,RBPI,and the induced velocity on jump takeoff performance in vertical phase.The impact of the unsteady ground effect and RBPI on the thrust and induced velocity of the experimental rotor of a small scale platform is analyzed.The study indicates that the proposed model agrees better with the experimental data than other models.It is useful for predicting the gyroplane jump takeoff performance for design.

Influence of Wall Effect on Comprehensive Controllability for Ducted Fan Aircraft

A novel coaxial ducted fan structure aircraft is proposed to enable the aircraft near vertical walls at high altitudes.The state space equation of the system can be obtained by correlation deduction and identification of the whole prototype model.Based on the duct test bench experiment and computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation analysis,the expressions between the different distances dWE from the rotor center of the prototype to the wall and the thrust,reaction torque,and tilting moment of the system under hovering conditions are obtained.The influence of the wall effect of the prototype is incorporated into the system model to analyze the relationship between distance dWE and the comprehensive controllability of the system.The results show that the system comprehensive controllability vector of other channels changes little with the decrease of the distance dWE,and only the controllability vector of the rolling channel increases significantly.At the same time,the tilting moment also increases significantly,which strengthens the tendency of the prototype to tilt towards the wall.

Robust adaptive fault-tolerant control of a tandem coaxial ducted fan aircraft with actuator saturation

This paper is concerned with the robust adaptive fault-tolerant control of a tandem coaxial ducted fan aircraft under system uncertainty, mismatched disturbance, and actuator saturation.For the proposed aircraft, comprehensive controllability analysis is performed to evaluate the controllability of each state as well as the margin to reject mismatched disturbance without any knowledge of the controller. Mismatched disturbance attenuation is ensured through a structured Hinfinity controller tuned by a non-smooth optimization algorithm. Embedded with the H-infinity controller, an adaptive control law is proposed in order to mitigate matched system uncertainty and actuator fault. Input saturation is also considered by the modified reference model. Numerical simulation of the novel ducted fan aircraft is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The simulation results reveal that the proposed adaptive controller achieves better transient response and more robust performance than classic Model Reference Adaptive Control（MRAC） method, even with serious actuator saturation.

A novel approach to the attitude stabilization structure for ducted-fan operative aerial robots:Finding improvements for modeling error and strong external transient disturbance

This research concerns a novel attitude stabilization structure for a ducted-fan aerial robot to work against modeling error and strong external transient disturbance,and it focuses on two main control targets:modeling error compensation,and the improvement of disturbance resistance along the rolling channel.For the first research objective,we proposed an adaptive nominal controller with the reconfigurable control law design based on the estimation of the modeling error found in the closed-loop.Results of simulations and corresponding flight tests verified that the proposed adaptive control structure is robust against both constant and time-varying modeling error.For the other research objective,a SAC(Stability Augmentation Control)structure was devised based on the CMG(Control Moment Gyroscope)theory in order to provide extra moment which effectively withstands the transient disturbance beyond the CDG(Critical Disturbance Gain).Furthermore,we studied the corresponding controller for the SAC via the SMC(sliding mode control)theory,while the working mechanism and performance of the SAC were verified through a specially devised prototype.

Model-Based Double Closed-Loop Coordinated Control Strategy for the Electro-Mechanical Transmission System of Heavy Power-Split HEVs

The dual-mode electro-mechanical transmission(EMT)system is a crucial part of power-split hybrid electric vehicles(HEVs),especially for the heavy HEVs.To improve the precision of the system power distribution and the response speed of the electric power supply,a model-based double closed-loop coordinated control strategy is proposed.As the basis of the proposed control strategy,an EMT system model,particularly of an electrical system,is established first.The proposed control strategy includes the power distribution strategy,battery power closed-loop feedback control strategy,and motor coordinated control strategy.To verify the feasibility of the proposed control strategy,simulation and experiment are performed.The results indicate that the proposed control strategy can realize the expected power distribution by coordinating generators and motors and achieve rapid and stable electric power supply.

A path planning algorithm for autonomous flying vehicles in cross-countryenvironments with a novel TF-RRT^(*) method

Autonomous flying vehicles(AFVs)are promising future vehicles,which have high obstacle avoidance ability.To plan a feasible path in a wide range of cross-country environments for the AFV,a triggered forward optimal rapidly-exploring random tree(TF-RRT^(*))method is proposed.Firstly,an improved sampling and tree growth mechanism is built.Sampling and tree growth are allowed only in the forward region close to the target point,which significantly improves the planning speed;Secondly,the driving modes(ground-driving mode or air-driving mode)of the AFV are added to the sampling process as a planned state for uniform planning the driving path and driving mode;Thirdly,according to the dynamics and energy consumption models of the AFV,comprehensive indicators with energy consumption and efficiency are established for path optimal procedures,so as to select driving mode and plan driving path reasonably according to the demand.The proposed method is verified by simulations with an actual cross-country environment.Results show that the computation time is decreased by 71.08%compared with Informed-RRT^(*)algorithm,and the path length of the proposed method decreased by 13.01%compared with RRT^(*)-Connect algorithm.