Autopilot for Tilt Wing Aircraft - Risk-Reduction-Test-Vehicle (RRTV)

Hello there 👋

This Matlab-Simulink-deployed autopilot is designed as a replacement for the stock PX4 flight controller and guidance system. This provides an interface layer for all communication remote-pilot functionality.

Integration with PX4

This is intended for use with my PX4 Simulink I/O Framework, and it will not work with the stock PX4. You may also find KGroundControl useful for your communication-related tasks.

Check out my tutorials on installing and configuring this framework on YouTube!

Installation

This is not a standalone project, you must retrieve the control system package from any of the following repositories:

• VSDDL Control System and GCS package for RRTV tilt wing aircraft configuration (proprietary to VSDDL).

Once done, all you need is to:

• Run the PX4_Project.prj file from Matlab to initialize everything.
• Use appropriate project shortcuts to launch GCS and Hardware-deployed control system.

For control system deployment:

1. In MATLAB, go to the "Project Shortcuts" tab and click on the "Open Hardware Model". This will open the correct, hardware-ready, Simulink model for controller deployment.
2. In Simulink, go to the "HARDWARE" tab and click on the right-most green icon "Build Deploy and Start". Follow the on-screen prompts to upload the compiled firmware to the Pixhawk board.

For Ground Control Station:

1. Make sure you have installed and correctly configured KGroundControl.
2. Make sure you have all joysticks wired up correctly, otherwise comment out the TX block. You may need to manually re-configure the joystick and pedal setup whenever you unplug those or even reboot the computer.
3. In MATLAB, go to the "Project Shortcuts" tab and click on the "Open GCS" tab. This will open the correct Simulink model for GCS.

Contact

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, Yevhenii (Jack) Kovryzhenko, at yzk0058@auburn.edu.

Credit

This work started during my Ph.D. at ACELAB at Auburn University, under the supervision of Dr. Ehsan Taheri. Part of this work has been used during my participation in the STTR Phase II project with Transcend Air Co. to support the control system deployment and related activities. For more details, check out my KGroundControl and PX4 Simulink I/O Framework repositories that were all part of this project.

I am still in the process of publishing journal papers that have directly used this work, so I will keep this section actively updated. Feel free to credit me by citing any of my relevant works. Some of the articles that directly used this work:

• Comer, A., Chakraborty, I., Kovryzhenko, Y., Taheri, E., Bhandari, R., Kunwar, B., and Putra, S., “Flight Testing of Explicit Model-Following Trajectory Control System for Lift-Plus-Cruise and Tilt-Wing Configurations,” presented at the VFS 80 Forum, Montreal, Canada, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4050/F-0080-2024-1306

  @inproceedings{comer_flight_2024,
  	address = {Montreal, Canada},
  	title = {Flight Testing of Explicit Model-Following Trajectory Control System for Lift-Plus-Cruise and Tilt-Wing Configurations},
  	copyright = {All rights reserved},
  	url = {https://doi.org/10.4050/F-0080-2024-1306},
  	doi = {10.4050/F-0080-2024-1306},
  	booktitle = {VFS 80 Forum},
  	author = {Comer, Anthony and Chakraborty, Imon and Kovryzhenko, Yevhenii and Taheri, Ehsan and Bhandari, Rajan and Kunwar, Bikash and Putra, Stefanus},
  	month = may,
  	year = {2024},
  }