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2018 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

Flight Systems and Control

A Practical Approach

Author: Tian Seng Ng

Publisher: Springer Singapore

Book Series : Springer Aerospace Technology

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book focuses on flight vehicles and their navigational systems, discussing different forms of flight structures and their control systems, from fixed wings to rotary crafts. Software simulation enables testing of the hardware without actual implementation, and the flight simulators, mechanics, glider development and navigation systems presented here are suitable for lab-based experimentation studies. It explores laboratory testing of flight navigational sensors, such as the magnetic, acceleration and Global Positioning System (GPS) units, and illustrates the six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) instrumentation as well as its data acquisition methodology. The book offers an introduction to the various unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems and their accessories, including the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) method for controlling the rotorcraft. It also describes a Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) control algorithm that simulates and runs the lab- based 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) helicopter, as well as LabVIEW software used to validate controller design and data acquisition. Lastly, the book explores future developments in aviation techniques.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The employment of the flight computer control is very common in airplanes as we used to travel around the world in the automated aircraft system. Advances in technological efforts have made air vehicle autonomous. Therefore, the studies and understandings of the scope are necessary for building automated aircraft systems.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 2. Flight Mechanics
Abstract
The study of the flight mechanics provide the fundamentals of aerospace engineering relating to any conventional flight vehicles. To fly and control the aircraft, we need to know the flight mechanics of the system. The understanding of the fundamental forces in flight is critical as it affects the flight performances of the flying plane. As such, it is wise for us to maintain the airplane to prevent catastrophic air system failures from occurring. Apparently, we can design and build a remotely controlled glider. A set of components that might be easily available can be useful for the glider design.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 3. Navigational Modules
Abstract
The aircraft system contains several sensors for flight navigation. The magnetic sensor aids in the directional travel of the air vehicle. The data from the sensor interprets to give the heading of the aircraft or any navigational bodies. The acceleration sensor senses motion or tilting angles and also measures the velocity. Application of the MEMS sensor is used for the heading and acceleration sensing of a mobile vehicle unit. The global positioning system or GPS locates the position and time reference.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 4. Flight Simulator Systems
Abstract
An aircraft is a multi-disciplined engineering product that we can design and develop to meet certain performance requirements based on the mission objectives. However, since engineering is not precise by nature and we have to compromise along the way in the development phase, the final product needs to be validated against the specified performance requirements. The validation of the flight performance aspects of an aircraft is known as flight test. The primary purpose of the flight test is to determine if the performance characteristics of the airplane are sufficient to accomplish its intended mission safely. Other functions include the validation of the aerodynamic properties, power plant characteristics or systems data, and the investigation into other related fields. Furthermore, we often used some principles of flight test to extract the aerodynamic properties as well as to predict performance characteristics of an airplane through simulated airplane flights.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 5. Tandem Rotor Helicopter Control
Abstract
In this chapter, we study the dynamic analysis and control design for the tandem rotor 3-DOF helicopter platform. We utilized the MATLAB/Simulink software to integrate with the Quarc software for the control system. The system mimics a Chinook helicopter, of which the build consists of a base to which an arm is mounted, two motor-driven propellers attached on the free-to-swivel helicopter body, a counter weight, DC amplifiers (power supply), desktop computer equipped with controller and DAQ card to interface with the 3-DOF helicopter. We run the helicopter system from the control of the joystick attached.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 6. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System
Abstract
Today, the establishments of the unmanned aerial vehicle in the Universities aim for progressive results in its research studies. Subsequently, upon successful research, we can deploy the various UAVs for surveillance purpose and other critical air missions. At the preliminary stage of building the unmanned system, we used plywood material, Styrofoam, servomotors, metal bar links, a microprocessor-based controller, and a written software with a radio transmitter to control the UAV. The UAV system employs intelligent controller for autonomous takeoff and landing capabilities. Moreover, it is also able to handle single or multiple UAV flight control and even cater for GPS waypoint navigation. The types of the air vehicle that exist today are the flapping wings MAV, the quadrotor, the Tricopter and the fixed wings and rotary wings UAVs.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 7. Rotorcrafts
Abstract
Several models of the rotorcraft exist in the present technology. They are the quadrotor (four motor propellers), and the Tricopter (three motor propellers). We can present a controller to simulate the responses for their different structures through its rotorcraft dynamics model. The chapter teaches us how to analyze the dynamics of the quadrotor structure. From the equated model, we can step forward to study the control characteristics to design a controller for the flight systems. Moreover, fleet control is also introduced. MATLAB is utilized to simulate and characterize its responses. For simulation, we validated the controllers in the LabVIEW environment.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 8. Flight Instrumentation Acquisition
Abstract
In the air vehicle, we need to measure the position and orientation using sensor measurements such as the inertial navigation sensors and GPS. We can develop and test an integrated navigation system that will incorporate a GPS receiver to provide the geographical location, whenever there is clear visibility of a few GPS satellites. An IMU, which consists of a set of heading and motion sensors that will provide the direction, attitude, gyroscopic and acceleration data (Dead Reckoning sensors). The algorithm and software to perform navigation based on the DR sensors are achievable. Moreover, we can combine the output of the DR sensor with GPS to display in a user-friendly featured project involving GPS navigation, and vehicle localization with online travel (speed, velocity, acceleration. etc.) data feedback.
Tian Seng Ng
Chapter 9. Recent and Future Developments
Abstract
The state-of-art technology in energy harvesting is the wind powered and photovoltaic technologies in the century. Activities like the solar harness UAVs are ongoing. Researchers are looking into better throughput, light weighted technology in unmanned aerial systems. Modern sources of energy available are the fuel cells energy, solar energy, and wind-powered energy. They must provide improvements either in performances or economic reliability in addition to reduce global climate changes. New rotor engine technology for vertical take-off and landing aircraft eliminates airplane runway to save spaces for other air traffic operations. New stealth technology flies without any moving surfaces.
Tian Seng Ng
Erratum to: Flight Systems and Control
Tian Seng Ng
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Flight Systems and Control
Author
Tian Seng Ng
Copyright Year
2018
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-10-8721-9
Print ISBN
978-981-10-8720-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8721-9

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