Guidance, Navigation, and Control System Design for Tripropeller Vertical-Take-Off-and-Landing Unmanned Air Vehicle

In this paper, we present the design and development of the guidance, navigation, and control system of a small vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned air vehicle based on a 6 degrees-of-freedom nonlinear dynamic model. The vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned air vehicle is equipped with three propellers for vertical thrust, and thrust differential together with a set of yaw trim flaps are used for 3 degrees-of-freedom attitude and thrust control actuation. The focus is on the 6 degrees-of-freedom flight control algorithm design using the trajectory linearization control method, along with simulation verification and robustness tests. Hardware and software implementation of the flight controller and onboard navigation sensors are also briefly discussed.

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