Abstract

Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) configurations incur a structural weight penalty that reduces payload fraction and endurance compared to conventional fixed-wing and multirotor aircraft of comparable gross weight. To extend the endurance of VTOL UAVs, this work presents the design, analysis and control of a novel unmanned tilt trirotor aircraft with tandem wings, named Gong-H, featuring VTOL capability and high aerodynamic efficiency. A prototype of this aircraft was built with the rotor system mounted between tandem wings with a high wing coverage rate, which can achieve a more compact structure than other VTOL aircraft. The control forces and torques are provided not only by the rotor system in VTOL flight mode and the two tandem wings in cruise mode, but also by both the rotor system and wings in transition mode. Additionally, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are conducted to optimize the wing configuration to improve the efficiency of cruise mode. Moreover, an airspeed-scheduled hybrid control framework based on incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI) and PID is adopted for different flight modes to improve the robustness of control and the stability of flight mode switching. Hover experiments confirm improved power efficiency compared to tilt quadrotor configuration, which extends endurance time and increases range. Additionally, complete flight cycle field experiments were conducted to demonstrate the aerodynamic feasibility of the prototype, including VTOL flight, cruise flight, and transition flight modes. Control surface redundancy tests and comparative INDI-PID validation under asymmetric disturbances further verify the practical robustness of the control framework. This work provides a design concept of VTOL aircraft and a practical solution for VTOL applications.

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