Robust Control of a Flapping-Wing MAV by Differentiable Wingbeat Modulation

We present in this paper the design of a nonlinear controller for robust control of a flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicle in the longitudinal plane. Control of both pitch and hover dynamics are performed by a single means of actuation, the flapping motion of the wing. This is accomplished through continuous manipulation of two parameters of the wingbeat waveform, namely a frequency shift and a wing bias. Differentiability of the wingbeat function with respect to these parameters allows a theoretically sound application of averaging techniques, an issue that has been frequently overlooked in the literature. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in dealing with parametric and dynamic model uncertainty.