A Swash Mass Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Design, Modeling and Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel swash mass UAV design with a unique nonlinear model, proposing a back-stepping control method that enables precise maneuvering and trajectory tracking.

Contribution

It presents a new UAV structure with a detailed nonlinear dynamical model and a Lyapunov-based control approach for effective maneuvering.

Findings

The UAV can accurately follow linear trajectories.

The control method handles aggressive maneuvers effectively.

Numerical simulations validate the proposed control strategy.

Abstract

In this paper, a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) structure, referred to as swash mass UAV, is presented. It consists of a double blade coaxial shaft rotor and four swash masses that allow changing the orientation and maneuvering the UAV. The dynamical system model is derived from the Newton\textquotesingle s law framework. The rotational behavior of the UAV is discussed as a function of the design parameters. Given the uniqueness and the form of the obtained non-linear dynamical system model, a back-stepping control mechanism is proposed. It is obtained following the Lyapunov's control approach in each iteration step. Numerical results show that the swashed mass UAV can be maneuvered with the proposed control algorithm so that linear and aggressive trajectories can be accurately tracked.