Simulation-based study on the control of an insect-inspired unmanned aerial vehicle with thrust- vectoring mechanism

Abstract

In this study, we propose an insect-inspired design of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is developed with a novel thrust vectoring mechanism. Like two-winged insects, our UAV is equipped with two propellers and two sets of thrust vectoring mechanisms, which enable controlling each propeller's position and attitude independently. By designing a control system suitable for the UAV, we successfully demonstrated its controllability of attitude apart from position control in a simulation model, which outperforming the conventional multi-rotor UAVs, enables achieving an arbitral attitude while flying horizontally. Future work may need to explore the optimal flight attitude to create the additional lift while improving the energy efficiency.