A Novel Tailsitter UAV with Configurable Wings

Abstract

In this study, we propose a novel tailsitter unmanned aerial vehicle with configurable wings using a parallel link mechanism. It has two flight modes: a hover mode and a forward flight mode by pitching, similar to conventional tailsitters. In addition, it can deform its airframe in each flight mode. In the hover mode, it can tilt the frame in the pitch direction while hovering. In the forward flight mode, it can change the configuration of the wings during forward flight. In experiments, we show that it can transition from the hover mode to the forward flight mode with three wing configurations: non-staggered wings (biplane) and positively and negatively staggered wings (tandem wing plane), using an attitude controller for conventional quadrotors.