Flight modeling and simulation for dynamic soaring with small unmanned air vehicles

Abstract

The design of guidance and control strategies is a promising study trend of dynamic soaring for small unmanned aerial vehicles, for which the flight modeling and simulation specifically for soaring-capable unmanned aerial vehicles is significant and necessary. The aim of this paper is to propose a flight simulation platform for dynamic soaring. In order to do so, firstly, two different sets of equations of motion of small unmanned aerial vehicles have been derived and their characteristics are compared: one is expressed in body-fixed frame and the other in air-relative flight path frame. Secondly, the latter set is used for energy analysis to maximize energy gain while climbing and diving and minimize energy cost during turning in dynamic soaring. While the former serves to build the dynamic soaring simulation platform, in which a piecewise trajectory-based guidance and control strategy according to the energy analysis is proposed tracking the optimum climb and bank angles and traveling toward desired directions. Simulation results indicate that the unmanned aerial vehicles can perform dynamic soaring toward various directions in different wind fields, follow asymptotically the typical straight-line and circular-orbit paths by repeating soaring cycles.