Attitude Control of Pitch-Decoupled VTOL Fixed Wing Tiltrotor

Attitude control of a VTOL Tilt Rotor Aircraft is presented such that the tiltrotor pitch is independently controlled from the remainder of the aircraft. This is made possible using the recently introduced pitch decoupled system in which the rotor pitch is passively coupled to the aircraft. This passive coupling facilitates differential thrust control to re-orient the self-same rotors while eliminating complex transition algorithms typically required for tilt rotor systems. This feature results in continuously variable transition and stable operation throughout the entire range of rotor pitch angles.