Bounded attitude control of a Flapping wing Micro Aerial Vehicle using direct sensors measurements

This paper presents two bounded attitude control laws of a high frequency Flapping Micro Aerial Vehicle (FMAV) based on sensors measurements feedback. First, a simplified model of a FMAV is proposed using only the steady aerodynamic efforts. Since solely the averaged forces and torques affect the body's movement, the control laws are computed using the averaged model and applied to the time varying model at the beginning of each wingbeat period. A first control law is developed using a rate gyro (measuring the body's angular velocity), and some reference sensors used to compute the attitude error. A second control law is proposed omitting the rate gyro in order to reduce FMAV's size and weight. The control laws are highly simple and bounded in order to prevent the saturation of the actuators and to increase their efficiency. The control strategies are compared and tested with respect to external disturbances.