Ducted fan performing aggressive flight maneuvers (circa 2001)

This video shows a receding horizon controller being used to generate and track aggressive trajectories. The input to the system is coming from a human (out of shot) who is generating desired set points and changing them. The controller is taking these set points and using them as commanded positions. It generates a trajectory that satisfies the (highly nonlinear) dynamics in real-time, then commands that motion. The trajectory generation is redone at approximately 10 Hz to account for errors (sensor noise, disturbances due to interactions with the environment, unmodeled dynamics, etc).

Controller design: Mark Milam (off camera), Ryan Franz (shown). Filmed in 12 Steele, Caltech in 2001.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• r3c
• 42502

[cdsmurrayrm]

The wing is mainly made of balsa wood and monokote, with some machined aluminum ribs. There are no support wires attached to the wing, but there is a steel cable that attaches to the end of the boom (and goes over a pulley to a counterweight). See "Receding Horizon Control of a Vectored Thrust Flight Experiment", by Mark B. Milam, Ryan Franz, John E. Hauser and Richard M. Murray (IEE Proceedings on Control Theory and Applications, 152(3):340-348, 2005).

[alpha001ful]

Thank you so much for the answers. i really liked this. Couple of queries :

1. Why was the counterweight necessary ?Wasn't the lift provided by the wing enough?

2. I didn't see the actuator of the aileron. Was it housed internally ?

3. Is the pitch control done by both thrust vectoring and aileron ? If yes, why was aileron not enlarged instead of adding thrust vectoring ?

Sorry for too many questions, but i am really enthusiastic about this and you guys have done a great job !

[alpha001ful]

Awesome !

1. What is the material used to make the wing ?

2. Is there anything hanging above the wing like a thread ?