Towards a high-end unmanned tri-TiltRotor: design, modeling and hover control

The design process, development considerations as well as hover modeling and control of a high-end capability unmanned Tri-TiltRotor aerial vehicle are the subjects of this article. Tilt-Rotor UAVs efficiently perform as fixed-wing air-craft and as rotorcrafts, being capable of both high-endurance high-speed flight as well as of vertical take-off and landing and precision manoeuvring. The additional integration of high-end computational power and sensors on such a type of aircraft provide a UAV platform with multiple operational usefulness capabilities. The system's hovering nonlinear dynamics and linearized model based on an identification of its actuation sub-system are presented, along with hovering attitude stabilization experimental results.