Modeling, Simulation, and Flight Test for Automatic Flight Control of the Condor Hybrid-Electric Remote Piloted Aircraft

摘要

This thesis describes the modeling and verification process for the stability and control analysis of the Condor hybrid-electric Remote-Piloted Aircraft (HE-RPA). Due to the high-aspect ratio, sailplane-like geometry of the aircraft, both longitudinal and lateral/directional aerodynamic moments and effects are investigated. The aircraft is modeled using both digital DATCOM as well as the JET5 Excel-based design tool. Static model data is used to create a detailed assessment of predictive flight characteristics and PID autopilot gains that are verified with autonomous flight test. PID gain values were determined using a six degree of freedom linear simulation with the Matlab/SIMULINK software. Flight testing revealed an over-prediction of the short period poles natural frequency, and a prediction to within 0.5% error of the long-period pole frequency. Flight test results show the tuned model PID gains produced a 21.7% and 44.1% reduction in the altitude and roll angle error, respectively. This research effort was successful in providing an analytic and simulation model for the hybrid-electric RPA, supporting first-ever flight test of parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system on a small RPA.