Modeling and control system design for a tilt ducted prop aerial vehicle

Abstract

Lately plenty of research institutes and companies are interested in PAVs (Personal Aerial Vehicles) to prepare the new epoch of the aerial vehicle market. This paper is mainly concerned with the tilt ducted prop aerial vehicle which can be applied to a PAV directly. After introducing the concept of the tilt ducted prop aerial vehicle, each force and moment of the components (ducts, fuselage and stabilizers) is calculated individually. These forces and moments are substituted for the basic equation of the aerial vehicle dynamics to represent the motion of the tilt ducted aerial vehicle mathematically. Trim conditions are calculated for both the helicopter mode and the airplane mode and stability is analyzed. The controller for autopilot is designed by using classical control theory. The prototype tilt ducted prop aerial vehicle is developed to measure basic flight performance and manual flight tests are accomplished. To confirm the better thrust efficiency of the ducted prop, ground tests and the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis for the duct are achieved.