Flight control of a drone equipped with a pusher type actuator using fuzzy logic control approach

Abstract

Recently, Personal Aerial Vehicle (PAV) using a form of multi-rotors has developed. However, this form is an under-actuated system that tilts the airframe to increase speed. This system causes a limitation of maximum speed and causes anxiety and fear in pilots during flight. In a previous study, a quadrotor equipped with a pusher actuator shows that it can fly 1.8 times faster than others and not tilt the airframe in forward-flight. However, it also has the critical problem that it is not easy to control both actuators due to an additional switch for operating the pusher actuator. In this study, we propose a control system using Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) to solve the control problem. This proposed method controls both the pusher actuator and conventional actuators according to the speed intended by users. For verification, the simulation proceeds in five various speed conditions. As a result, it shows that the quadrotor uses the θ angle to move forward in a low-speed and uses the pusher actuator for getting speed while maintaining zero θ angle in a high-speed. From this study, we expect that the proposed method helps to commercialize PAVs by ensuring safety and controllability for pilots.