Development of autonomous hybrid UAV U-Lion with VTOL and cruise flying capabilities

摘要

In this paper, we present a novel hybrid UAV, U-Lion, which has autonomous VTOL and cruise flying capabilities. The reconfigurable wings are designed so that the structure of U-Lion is aerodynamically efficient in both flying modes. Vectoring thrust and the multiple control surfaces tail are implemented to increase the controllability for better maneuverability and stronger rejection to wind gust disturbance. A complete control framework is developed for the autonomous flight for both flying modes as well as the bi-directional transitions. An autonomous outdoor flight test result is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the platform design and the entire control framework.