Intelligent Control of A Mini Ducted-Fan VTOL UAV

Utilizing UAVs for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is beneficial in both military and civil applications. For the successful close range ISR missions, a small VTOL UAV with high speed capability is the best candidate. Existing UAVs suffer from the design tradeoff that are usually required to have both VTOL capability and high speed flight performance. We consider a novel ducted-fan UAV design configuration which combines several important design elements from various UAV configurations; rotorcraft, ducted-fan, tail-sitter, and fixed-wing aircraft. Although the proposed UAV configuration is more towards VTOL type, the high speed flight is achieved by performing a transition maneuver from vertical to horizontal attitude. In this unique approach, the crucial characteristics of VTOL and high speed flight are attained from a single UAV design. These tremendous capabilities come with challenges. One of the biggest challenges is to develop an effective autonomous controller for the full flight envelope. Ducted- fan type UAV is highly nonlinear, unstable platform, complex aerodynamics, and has uncertainties in vehicle dynamics. Conventional control approaches have limitations to deal with all these issues.