High-Order Fully Actuated System Approach-Based Controller Design for Tailsitter in Flight Mode Transitions

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Control Systems Theory
• Robotics

Background:

• Fan-powered tailsitters exhibit dual-mode flight capabilities (rotary-wing and fixed-wing).
• Transitioning between flight modes presents significant control challenges due to disturbances and complexity.
• Existing control methods struggle with accuracy and disturbance rejection during mode transitions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate a predefined-time stability tracking control problem for tailsitters.
• To develop a robust controller addressing parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.
• To enhance control accuracy, convergence speed, and robustness during flight mode transitions.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a second-order dynamic model and the High-Order Fully Actuated (HOFA) system approach.
• Developed a high-order robust controller to overcome limitations of current transition controls.
• Proposed a novel predefined-time HOFA scheme with adjustable parameters for flexible convergence time tuning.

Main Results:

• The proposed scheme demonstrated enhanced control accuracy and faster convergence compared to conventional methods.
• Achieved improved robustness against parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.
• The predefined-time HOFA framework allows explicit tuning of convergence time.

Conclusions:

• The novel predefined-time HOFA scheme offers superior performance for tailsitter flight mode transitions.
• The framework provides tunable convergence times and robust guarantees under uncertainties.
• This research addresses critical limitations in current tailsitter control literature.