Scheduling Control Considering Model Inconsistency of Membrane-Wing Aircraft

Inconsistency in the structural strengths of a membrane wing under positive and negative loads has undesirable impacts on the aeroelastic deflections of the wing, which results in more significant flight control system modeling errors and worsens the performance of the aircraft. In this paper, an integrated dynamic model is derived for a membrane-wing aircraft based on the structural dynamics equation of the membrane wing and the flight dynamics equation of the traditional fixed wing. Based on state feedback control theory, an autopilot system is designed to unify the flight and control properties of different flight and wing deformation statuses. The system uses models of different operating regions to estimate the dynamic response of the vehicle and compares the estimation results with the sensor signals. Based on the compared results, the autopilot can identify the overall flight and select the correct operating region for the control system. By switching to the operating region with the minimum modeling error, the autopilot system maintains good flight performance while flying in turbulence. According to the simulation results, compared with traditional rigid aircraft autopilots, the proposed autopilot can reduce the absolute maximum attack angles by nearly 27% and the absolute maximum wingtip twist angles by nearly 25% under gust conditions. This enhanced robustness and stability performance demonstrates the autopilot’s significant potential for practical deployment in micro-aerial vehicles, particularly in applications demanding reliable operation under turbulent conditions, such as military surveillance, environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, or infrastructure inspection.