This paper presents an investigation into the design of an active control system for a UAV with composite seamless wing and control surfaces. Due to a large swept-back angle of 40 degree and flexibility of the wing, the control effectiveness and controllability of the UAV raised a major concern. To avoid adding materials for stiffness increase at the cost of weight, the wing spar and skin layup was tailored to gain adequate wing bending, torsional and coupling stiffness. A couple of seamless control surfaces were located at the leading and trailing edges near the wing tip to achieve required roll performance of the UAV. An active control algorism was created to command the seamless control surfaces to reduce adverse wing twist. The active control algorism allows negative gains to reverse the control surface deflection according to flight conditions. This operation shows the potential for flight control beyond control reversal speed. This has enabled the wing produces more lift and pushed the control reversal speed to a higher level. The results show that both the aeroelastic tailoring of the SAW and the controller make significant improvement of the UAV rolling controllability.
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