Dias Ferreira, Fernando Roque (Portuguese Air Force Academy), Oliveira, Tiago (Portuguese Air Force), Chá, Silvia (Portuguese Air Force Academy)

An Integrated Tool to Compute the Dynamic Model and Assess the Lateral Controller Parameters of a UAV Equipped with a Piccolo Autopilot

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "UAS Applications II" (ThB3), Thursday, September 3, 2020, 16:20−16:40, Edessa

2020 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), September 1-4, 2020 (Postponed from June 9-12, 2020), Athens, Greece

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on October 31, 2025

Abstract

This paper presents a new computational tool that allows to estimate a mathematical model of a given Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with a Piccolo autopilot, and subsequently, assess its lateral controller parameters, in order to tune the desired response of the closed-loop system. It starts by presenting an estimate of the Piccolo autopilot’s lateral control laws (which are not provided by the manufacturer), by updating those proposed in the literature. Then, a mathematical model of the ANTEX-X02 Alfa 07 UAV is derived and validated using flight test results. Finally, our proposed computational tool is outlined, and a new set of controller gains is computed. Real-world flight test results presents a 53% reduction on the rise time and a decrease of 65% on the settling time to reach a desired bank command, when compared to the standard autopilot gains. Moreover, for a standard flight plan, the signal tracking delay between the reference command and the UAV’s attitude was reduced by 62%. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed tool.