This article presents a model predictive control (MPC) controller and its novel application to a hybrid tilt-quadrotor fixed-wing aircraft, which combines vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities with high-speed forward flight. The developed MPC controller takes a velocity command from the pilot and then computes optimal attitude setpoints and propeller-tilt angles that are supplied to a fast inner attitude controller. A control allocation algorithm then maps the output of the inner attitude loop to actuator commands. The proposed MPC and control allocation of this article constitute a unified nonlinear control approach for tilt-rotor VTOL aircraft, valid in all flight modes and transitions in between. The whole approach is verified both in simulations and in real-world outdoor experiments with a remote controlled VTOL aircraft transitioning from hover to high speed and vice versa in a stable and controlled manner. Results show superior performance compared to the common binary-switch transition strategy between multicopter flight mode and the fixed-wing flight mode. The MPC controller also consistently performs better than a previously developed fused-PID control architecture in our tests.

中文翻译：

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倾转旋翼 VTOL 飞机的 MPC 飞行控制

本文介绍了一种模型预测控制 (MPC) 控制器及其在混合倾斜四旋翼固定翼飞机上的新颖应用，该飞机将垂直起降 (VTOL) 功能与高速前飞相结合。开发的 MPC 控制器从飞行员那里获取速度命令，然后计算提供给快速内部姿态控制器的最佳姿态设定点和螺旋桨倾斜角。然后，控制分配算法将内部姿态环的输出映射到执行器命令。本文提出的 MPC 和控制分配构成了倾转旋翼 VTOL 飞机的统一非线性控制方法，适用于所有飞行模式及其之间的转换。整个方法在模拟和真实世界的户外实验中得到验证，遥控 VTOL 飞机以稳定和受控的方式从悬停过渡到高速，反之亦然。结果表明，与多旋翼飞行模式和固定翼飞行模式之间的常见二进制切换转换策略相比，性能更优越。在我们的测试中，MPC 控制器的性能也始终优于先前开发的融合 PID 控制架构。