Design of an autonomous unmanned aircraft flight path controller

This paper presents the design of a flight path controller for an unmanned aircraft. Innovative control technique based on nested Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) loops is introduced in the design. The flight characteristics of the airframe used in the controller development is analyzed using a three degree of freedom point mass equation of motion. Simulation results of flight controller together with aircraft dynamics are demonstrated in order to show and validate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.