Longitudinal Model Construction of a Small Flying-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and a Nonlinear Control Approach to Altitude Stabilization and Automatic Landing

Abstract

This paper presents longitudinal dynamic model construction of a small flying-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a nonlinear control approach to altitude stabilization and automatic landing. The longitudinal dynamic model is obtained by considering the aerodynamics, i.e., wind-tunnel experiment data, for the small flying-wing UAV inadditiontosix-degree-of-freedomdynamicsofitsbody. Thispaperprovidesalsoanonlinearcontrolapproachbased on the guaranteed cost control design framework to altitude stabilization and automatic landing. The nonlinear control approach is compared with the linear LQR design approach. The simulation results demonstrate the utility of our nonlinear control approach utilizing the constructed longitudinal dynamic model with the considered aerodynamics.