Motion Control for a Manned eVTOL Aircraft with Cross Tilting Propellers

This paper considers the motion control of a manned electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft with cross tilting propellers. This article mainly focuses on the challenging technical aspects of eVTOLs, including aerodynamic effects and cross-tilted rotor blade design, battery discharge effects, and control law design. First, we develop a system simulation platform for a large-scale manned eVTOL, incorporating aerodynamic effects and a discharge model for the power battery. Second, we design a cross-tilted configuration for rotor blades to enhance yaw channel control sensitivity and reduce power consumption in that channel significantly. Third, PID control law and Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) are integrated as the flight control algorithm for the large-scale manned eVTOL, achieving excellent experimental results in hover flight, waypoint tracking, path following, and other motion control tasks. This algorithm enables stable flight even in the presence of external disturbances. Simulations and experimental results complete the work.