Design, Modeling and Control of a Two Flight Mode Capable Single Wing Rotorcraft With Mid-Air Transition Ability

Monocopters are nature-inspired, single-wing, rotating aerial vehicles that fly by spinning their entire body. Meanwhile, bicopters are twin propeller-based aerial vehicles that control their attitude by changing the direction of thrust from the motors using two servos. In this paper, we present a novel single-wing aerial vehicle, which can fly in both the monocopter and bicopter modes. To enhance its maneuverability while still being in the air, the platform can perform a mid-air transition from one mode to another. To achieve this, we fused the attributes of monocopter and bicopter, while allowing the monocopter to maintain its natural shape for flight. Considering forces and torques experienced by both modes of flight, the dynamics are described, and a cascaded control strategy is developed. A novel approach is proposed to control the angular velocity of the monocopter. An innovative blending and transition method of controllers for both modes is developed to allow transition between the two modes. We constructed a prototype to demonstrate the flight of the aerial vehicle in both modes. The results verify the proposed concept for the design of the aerial vehicle, along with the control strategy implemented for the control over the states during the flight modes as well as the transition between the two modes.