eVTOL Performance Analysis: A Review From Control Perspectives

Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft has gained significant attention as a basic element of urban air mobility (UAM), a potential solution for urban transportation challenges using low-altitude urban airspace. Ensuring the safe operation of eVTOL is crucial for UAM applications, which are related to various professional fields such as aerodynamics, control, structures, and power systems. This article systematically analyzes the characteristics of different design configurations, including multi-rotor, lift+cruise, and tilt-rotor types of eVTOL. The advantages and limitations of each type of eVTOL are analyzed. After that, the overall design problems are analyzed, and challenges of eVTOL control system design are discussed from aspects of overall control structure and subsystems, such as controller, sensors, actuators, and command generator. This article tries to fill the gap in the eVTOL design from a control perspective and provides some resolutions for the eVTOL application.