Rotorcraft Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (RUAV) System Identification, Modeling, and Flight Control System Development

摘要

A new challenge to industry and the government alike is the trend toward highly compressed schedules for rotorcraft uninhabited aerial vehicle (RUAV) development and system fielding. Current RUAV proposals and development programs are on 6- to 9-month schedules, in contrast to the 6- to 10-year schedules common to most recent piloted rotorcraft systems. This year, the Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division launched a new initiative: Control and Simulation Technologies for Autonomous Rotorcraft (COSTAR) which seeks to develop key enabling technologies for the control and simulation of RUAVs. The COSTAR initiative refines technologies originally developed for manned rotorcraft for application to the RUAV problem, and seeks to increase technology integration sufficiently to realize the desired reduction in design cycle time. Key elements of COSTAR include accurate flight-mechanics modeling using system identification (CIFER), control system design optimization for multiple objectives (CONDUIT), and real-time workstation-based simulation (RIPTIDE). COSTAR technologies are central to three ongoing cooperative projects, in which university and industry RUAV developers have teamed with the Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division s Flight Control Technology Group. The three cooperative projects are discussed in this paper.