Longitudinal Flight Dynamics of a Single Tilt-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

A single tilt-wing UAV has a new-concept hybrid configuration for adopting the advantages of both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. This paper presents longitudinal flight characteristics of the single tilt-wing UAV whose design is based on a tapered wing type aircraft with an actuating motor and a propeller mounted at each wing. Momentum theory is used to calculate thrust, and nonlinear modeling is performed considering lift and drag generated by slip stream effect of the propellers. Force and moment variation is considered for tilting angle change. Also, static trim on longitudinal axis is analyzed for operation airspeeds from 0 to 30m/s, and numerical simulation shows the flight dynamic characteristics of the UAV. It is verified that the single tilt-wing UAV has stable dynamic characteristics at fixed-wing mode.