A key research subject in the area of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is how to make them autonomous. Towards this goal, the most vital step is stabilizing the attitude of the vehicles. This paper presents the design of an autonomous control system for a hybrid UAV to enable it to carry out a stable hovering mission under external wind disturbances. The hovering capability of the hybrid UAV under windy conditions is analysed with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and a control law is designed to stabilize the craft in the hovering position. The proposed hovering controller is verified with simulations and experiments. Finally, the flight control system is installed in a small prototype and a full transition flight test, including vertical take-off, transition from vertical flight to cruise, cruise, transition cruise to vertical mode and hover landing, is successfully accomplished.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.