Towards landing a deep-stalled flying-wing in a powered flat spin: a proof of concept

Towards landing a deep-stalled flying-wing in a powered flat spin: a proof of concept

Barbera, Matteo (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering)

de Wagter, C. (mentor)
Remes, B.D.W. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Aerospace Engineering | Control & Simulation

2022-11-30

Flying-wings show great potential for a vast number of applications, in both commercial and military sectors, thanks to their long range and fast forward flight, but suffer due to their lack of vertical take-off and landing capabilities. This paper presents a proof of concept for a novel landing method for a conventional flying wing that does not introduce additional weight dedicated only to the landing phase, with the aim of controlling a deep-stalled flying-wing in a powered flat spin. Through cyclic actuation of the servo motors and elevons, lateral forces as well as moments can be generated to control the position and attitude of the rotation plane. A successful indoor experiment was performed with a modified Parrot Disco in a controlled environment. Outdoor tests, however, failed to replicate the indoor results due to additional challenges present in the real flight conditions. A number of key challenges were identified, and the insights gained in this research lay an initial foundation for future work on this topic.

flying wing
Deep stall
samara
flat spin
control algorithm
proof-of-concept
MAV
UAV
drone
landing

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4e100997-a5b3-4863-a312-4721296fcdba

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Matteo Barbera