Improving Autonomous Performance of a Passive Morphing Fixed Wing UAV

Abstract

In this article, simultaneous longitudinal and lateral flight control systems design for both passive and active morphing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is first time applied for autonomous flight performance maximization. For this purpose, an UAV whose wing and tail unit can be assembled to fuselage from different points in a prescribed interval and whose wing and tail can move forward and backward independently in tail to nose direction is manufactured. Following this, an autopilot is purchased and it lets change of P, I, D coefficients in certain intervals. First, dynamic model and longitudinal and lateral state space models of UAV are obtained and then simulation model is reached. At the same time, block diagram of autopilot system and modeling of it in MATLAB/Simulink environment are found. After these, using these two models and adaptive stochastic optimization method, namely, SPSA, simultaneous design of UAV and autopilot is applied in order to minimize a cost function consisting of rise time, settling time and maximum overshoot. Therefore, primarily autonomous performance is maximized in computer environment. Moreover, high performance is observed at simulation responses.