System Identification and Dynamics Modeling of a Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Perry, Aaron T.; Ansell, Phillip J.

doi:10.2514/6.2019-3086

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Distributed electric propulsion vertical take‐off and landing (VTOL) aircraft have attracted widespread interest in the aerospace area and is thought to be relevant for the next generation of aircraft in development [1] due to their high overall efficiency and reliability [2]. Some advanced distributed electronic propulsion (DEP) VTOL aircraft have been proposed in recent years, such as the Lilium Jet [3] and DAPPAR Lightning Strike [4] equipped with tiltable ducted fans, Airbus Vahana [5] and NASA GL‐10 [6] with tiltable wings, and Joby S2 [7] with hybrid tiltable and fixed rotors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A smooth control allocation method for a distributed electric propulsion VTOL aircraft test platform

Qin¹,

Liu²,

Zhao³

2023

IET Control Theory & Appl

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Distributed electronic propulsion (DEP) aircraft with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) ability mostly equipped with multiple redundant tiltable propulsors, which are used to provide not only thrusts, but also control torque in all flight mode. The features make the control allocation problem of these aircraft both complex and important. Therefore, this paper proposes: (і) a prototype platform for DEP VTOL aircraft that allows researchers to design and analyse control allocation strategies, and (іі) a uniform hierarchical control allocation method that can be adapted to both MC and FW modes. The platform contains ten fully actuated thrusters, which are distributed in the scaled geometry of a typical DEP-VTOL aircraft. The proposed control allocation strategy uses hierarchical structure to avoid high-dimensional matrix operations for the redundant actuators. The additional constraints on the thrust and tilt angles of the actuators are addressed by adopting cascade generalized inversion (CGI) to force decompensation (FD)-based methods by a coordinate transformation. A novel smooth strategy through Schur Complement is also presented to achieve steady and smooth transition from MC to FW mode. Finally, the proposed method is implemented in the authors' novel platform in both simulations and flight experiments to demonstrate its effectiveness and smoothness.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A smooth control allocation method for a distributed electric propulsion VTOL aircraft test platform

Qin¹,

Liu²,

Zhao³

2023

IET Control Theory & Appl

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“…On the other hand, electric propulsion technology provides incredible new degrees of freedom in UAV system integration to achieve unprecedented collaborative coupling of aerodynamics, propulsion, control, and structure [3]. The unique feature of electric propulsion is that the technology is almost scale-free, allowing small motors to be paralleled for fail safe redundancy or distributed on the fuselage without significant effect on efficiency or specific weight [4][5][6][7]. Because of this separation between power and propulsion, efficient, compact motor and transmission systems are now available, enabling many different revolutionary UAV configurations [8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation and Comparison of Hybrid Wing VTOL UAV with Four Different Electric Propulsion Systems

et al. 2021

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Electric propulsion technology has attracted much attention in the aviation industry at present. It has the advantages of environmental protection, safety, low noise, and high design freedom. An important research branch of electric propulsion aircraft is electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, which is expected to play an important role in urban traffic in the future. Limited by battery energy density, all electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are unable to meet the longer voyage. Series/parallel hybrid-electric propulsion and turboelectric propulsion are considered to be applied to VTOL UAVs to improve performances. In this paper, the potential of these four configurations of electric propulsion systems for small VTOL UAVs are evaluated and compared. The main purpose is to analyze the maximum takeoff mass and fuel consumption of VTOL UAVs with different propulsion systems that meet the same performance requirements and designed mission profiles. The differences and advantages of the four types propulsion VTOL UAV in the maximum takeoff mass and fuel consumption are obtained, which provides a basis for the design and configuration selection of VTOL UAV propulsion system.

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Experimental research on aero-propulsion coupling characteristics of a distributed electric propulsion aircraft

Zhang

Zhang²,

li³

et al. 2023

Chinese Journal of Aeronautics

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System Identification and Dynamics Modeling of a Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Cited by 7 publications

References 17 publications

A smooth control allocation method for a distributed electric propulsion VTOL aircraft test platform

A smooth control allocation method for a distributed electric propulsion VTOL aircraft test platform

Evaluation and Comparison of Hybrid Wing VTOL UAV with Four Different Electric Propulsion Systems

Experimental research on aero-propulsion coupling characteristics of a distributed electric propulsion aircraft

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