Canted-Hex VTOL Control Reconfiguration for Motor-Out Landing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) face design tradeoffs between agility and energy efficiency, and lack the ability to maintain control in degraded operational states, such as motor-out situations, limiting their operational flexibility and safety.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a hexagonal or circular ring wing with angled propulsion mechanisms that allow for six degrees of freedom, including vertical takeoff and landing, and implements a bank-to-yaw control architecture to maintain control and safely land the vehicle in degraded states by prioritizing control reconfigurations and using a non-standard prioritization scheme.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If aerial vehicles are designed to optimize for high agility, then maneuverability is improved, but energy efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control architecture dynamically reconfigures control priorities and parameters based on operational state. In normal operation, the system optimizes for maneuverability with standard control weighting. When motor failure is detected, the system dynamically adjusts control priorities to maintain stability and achieve safe landing, transitioning between different performance optimization modes without hardware changes.
2Ease of operation
If aerial vehicles are designed assuming fully operational state, then control performance is optimized, but reliability in degraded states deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is pre-configured with multiple operational mode profiles including normal operation, degraded operation with single motor failure, and emergency landing modes. The system proactively prepares these control configurations in advance, so when motor failure occurs, the transition to degraded mode control is immediate and seamless, maintaining reliability without requiring real-time control redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes control parameters dynamically based on operational state. Control weighting matrices, priority hierarchies, and stability margins are adjusted according to the number of functional motors. This allows the same hardware to achieve optimal control performance in both fully operational and degraded states through parameter reconfiguration rather than hardware modification.
3Device complexity
If standard priority control is used, then control simplicity is maintained, but adaptability in motor-out scenarios deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control architecture implements dynamic priority reconfiguration based on motor operational status. In normal operation, standard control priorities are maintained for simplicity. Upon detecting motor failure, the system automatically reconfigures control priorities to redistribute thrust commands among remaining functional motors, adjusting stability priorities, and initiating appropriate landing procedures, all through software-based dynamic adaptation without increasing physical complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed implementations describe systems and methods for stabilizing vertical takeoff and landing (“VTOL”) or hover flight of a degraded canted-hex aerial vehicle so that the degraded canted-hex aerial vehicle can safely navigate to a landing area. For example, upon detection of a motor-out event, the disclosed implementations may cause an opposing propulsion mechanism of the aerial vehicle to terminate operation, the prioritization of the flight controller to change, and for a feedback loop of the flight controller to provide a preferred thrust to counteract yaw torques acting on the canted-hex aerial vehicle.