Modeling and flight testing of wing shaping for roll control of an unmanned aerial vehicle

In this paper, an approach is described to implement autonomous (waypoint tracking) flight in a testbed airframe, which uses wing twist for roll control. These flights were performed using an existing commercial autopilot. Aileron effectiveness was identified as a parameter that could be modified to maintain roll control during autonomous flight. A modeling process was then developed to calculate the aileron effectiveness for a wing shaping demonstrator aircraft utilizing numerically determined aerodynamic properties. Simulations and flight tests with the testbed aircraft were performed that demonstrated suitability of the approach for autonomous flight. In-flight aileron doublets were used to validate the aileron effectiveness predicted by the numerical model, which matched within 7%.