A Takeoff Control Strategy for Flying-Wing UAV with Embedded Control Surface Compensation

In the takeoff process of flying wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the thrust line is higher than the reference position of the center of gravity and the landing gear is opened, which will produce a large nose-down pitching moment. When using the conventional control surface allocation configuration, the elevator needs to deflect a larger angle to offset this part of moment and make the aircraft climb according to the target pitch angle. A flying wing UAV takeoff control strategy with embedded control surface compensation was designed to resolve this issue. During the flying wing UAV takeoff, the embedded rudder deflection was used to offset the nose-down pitching moment. The calculation of the Attainable Moment Subset (AMS) showed that this method can significantly improve the range of aircraft control moment, and the feasibility was verified through flight experiments. It can improve the aircraft's pitch control ability and improve the actual climbing effect.