Design and Performance of a Novel Tapered Wing Tiltrotor UAV for Hover and Cruise Missions

This research focuses on a novel convertible unmanned aerial vehicle (CUAV) featuring four rotors with tilting capabilities combined with a tapered form. This paper studies the transition motion between multirotor and fixed-wing modes based on the mechanical and aerodynamics design as well as the control strategy. The proposed CUAV involves information about design, manufacturing, operation, modeling, control strategy, and real-time experiments. The CUAV design considers a fixed-wing with tiltrotors and provides the maneuverability to perform take-off, hover flight, cruise flight, and landing, having the characteristics of a helicopter in hover flight and an aircraft in horizontal flight. The manufacturing is based on additive manufacturing, which facilitates the creation of a lattice structure within the wing. The modeling is obtained using the Newton–Euler equations, and the control strategy is a PID controller based on a geometric approach on SE(3). Finally, the real-time experiments validate the proposed design for the complete regime of flight, and the research meticulously evaluates the feasibility of the prototype and its potential to significantly enhance the mission versatility.