Hybrid overactuated tilt rotor uncrewed aerial vehicles (TRUAVs) are a category of versatile UAVs known for their exceptional wind resistance capabilities. However, their extensive operational range, combined with thrust vectoring capabilities, presents complex control challenges due to nonaffine dynamics and the necessity to coordinate lift and thrust for controlling accelerations at varying airspeeds. Traditionally, these vehicles rely on switched logic controllers with two or more intermediate states to control transitions. In this study, we introduce an innovative, unified incremental nonlinear controller designed to seamlessly control an overactuated dual-axis tilting rotor quad-plane throughout its entire flight envelope. Our controller is based on an incremental nonlinear control allocation algorithm to simultaneously generate pitch and roll commands, along with physical actuator commands. The control allocation problem is solved using a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) iterative optimization algorithm making it well-suited for the nonlinear actuator effectiveness typical of thrust vectoring vehicles. The controller's design integrates desired roll and pitch angle inputs. These desired attitude angles are managed by the controller and then conveyed to the vehicle during slow airspeed phases, when the vehicle maintains its 6-degrees of freedom (6-DOF). As the airspeed increases, the controller seamlessly shifts its focus to generating attitude commands for lift production, consequently smoothly disregarding the desired roll and pitch angles. Furthermore, our controller integrates an angle of attack (AoA) protection logic to mitigate wing stalling risks during transitions. It also features a yaw rate reference model to enable coordinated turns and minimize side-slip. The effectiveness of our proposed control technique has been confirmed through comprehensive flight tests. These tests demonstrated the successful transition from hovering flight to forward flight, the attainment of vertical and lateral accelerations, and the ability to revert to hovering.

This paper presents a method to recover quadrotor Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) from a throw, when no control parameters are known before the throw. We leverage the availability of high-frequency rotor speed feedback available in racing drone hardware and software to find control effectiveness values and fit a motor model using recursive least squares (RLS) estimation. Furthermore, we propose an excitation sequence that provides large actuation commands while guaranteeing to stay within gyroscope sensing limits. After 450ms of excitation, an Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) attitude controller uses the 52 fitted parameters to arrest rotational motion and recover an upright attitude. Finally, a Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) position controller drives the craft to a position setpoint. The proposed algorithm runs efficiently on microcontrollers found in common UAV flight controllers, and was shown to recover an agile quadrotor every time in live experiments with as low as 3.5m throw height, demonstrating robustness against initial rotations and noise. We also demonstrate control of randomized quadrotors in simulated throws, where the parameter fitting Root-Mean-Square (RMS) error is typically within 10% of the true value.

We propose a combined method for the collaborative transportation of a suspended payload by a team of rotorcraft. A recent distance-based formation-motion control algorithm based on assigning distance disagreements among robots generates the acceleration signals to be tracked by the vehicles. In particular, the proposed method does not need global positions nor tracking prescribed trajectories for the motion of the members of the team. The acceleration signals are followed accurately by an Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion controller designed for rotorcraft that measures and resists the tensions from the payload. Our approach allows us to analyze the involved accelerations and forces in the system so that we can calculate the worst case conditions explicitly to guarantee a nominal performance, provided that the payload starts at rest in the 2D centroid of the formation, and it is not under significant disturbances. For example, we can calculate the maximum safe deformation of the team with respect to its desired shape. We demonstrate our method with a team of four rotorcraft carrying a suspended object two times heavier than the maximum payload for an individual. Last but not least, our proposed algorithm is available for the community in the open-source autopilot Paparazzi.

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) are limited in their operation outdoors near obstacles by their ability to withstand wind gusts. Currently widespread position control methods such as Proportional Integral Derivative control do not perform well under the influence of gusts. Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) is a sensor-based control technique that can control nonlinear systems subject to disturbances. This method was developed for the attitude control of MAVs, but in this paper we generalize this method to the outer loop control of MAVs under gust loads. Significant improvements over a traditional Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller are demonstrated in an experiment where the drone flies in and out of a fan's wake. The control method does not rely on frequent position updates, so it is ready to be applied outside with standard GPS modules.