Design and Test of Plasma Control Surface on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

A flying wing layout is an aircraft layout with no tail only huge wings. It has the advantages of lightweight, low flight resistance and good stealth, but it also has shortcomings such as poor maneuverability. The use of the active flow control technology to replace or enhance the control surfaces, therefore improve the lateral maneuverability of flying wings has attracted the interest of various research teams. The plasma flow control technology can change flow near the actuator to achieve the effect of controlling the local pressure of wing, thereby completing the lateral manipulation of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Many teams have also carried out relevant experiments, which laid the theoretical foundation for this paper. This paper mainly designs a sensor board system of flying wing UAV, which is used to collect the local pressure on the wing of UAV and control the switch of actuator. An experiment was carried out on the ground. First, this board can collect and monitor the pressure data at a certain point. Second, the circuit system can also react to specific situations (such as local pressure values) and automatically control the actuator’s switches. Third, the plasma actuator can also be actively controlled by remote control. This experiment lays the theory and practice foundation for the UAV flight experiments in the future.