Small unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs) are suitable for many low-altitude operations in urban environments due to their manoeuvrability; however, their flight performance is limited by their on-board energy storage and their ability to cope with high levels of turbulence. Birds exploit the atmospheric boundary layer in urban environments, reducing their energetic flight costs by using orographic lift

This paper proposes an attitude control scheme for the Dove flapping wing micro air vehicle in intermittent flapping and gliding flight. The Dove flapping wing micro air vehicle adopts intermittent flapping and gliding flight to make the wing movements more natural; this strategy also has the potential to reduce energy consumption. To implement this specific flight mode, this paper proposes a closed-loop

In this work, we present a novel design for vertical surface contact using a two degree of freedom robotic arm attached to a Micro Air Vehicle. To achieve this, we propose a controller based on a Gain-Scheduled Proportional–Integral–Derivative approach. In previous works, the Gain-Scheduled Proportional–Integral–Derivative method was used to control the attitude of the Micro Air Vehicle, thus mitigating

The robust control problem in attitude tracking of an unmanned aerial vehicle quadrotor is a challenging task due to strong parametric uncertainties, large nonlinearities and high couplings in flight dynamics. In this paper, a continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller based on linear extended state observer is proposed for attitude tracking control of a quadrotor under lumped disturbances

In this work, we address the problem of UAV detection flying nearby another UAV. Usually, computer vision could be used to face this problem by placing cameras onboard the patrolling UAV. However, visual processing is prone to false positives, sensible to light conditions and potentially slow if the image resolution is high. Thus, we propose to carry out the detection by using an array of microphones

This paper presents experimental results on the relation between forward airspeed, pitch angle, and power consumption of a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle. The quadcopter consists of an interchangeable spherical body, four cylindrical arms, and small propellers mounted at 1 m diagonal distance to minimize interference between body and propellers. This simple geometry facilitates results reproduction

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) with transitioning flight capabilities, or simply hybrid MAVs, operate over a wide flight envelope including different flight phases, such as vertical take-off, efficient forward flight, transitioning flights, hovering and vertical landing, see Figure 1. While this complete flight envelope enlarges the application range of MAVs, new aerodynamics optimization approaches must

Rotary-wing nano air vehicle (NAV) is a kind of small unmanned air vehicle powered with one or several rotors. NAV which has a maximum size of 7.5 cm and a minimum payload of 2 g is able to enter buildings, penetrate narrow entries, and transmit data without being detected at a low speed.1–3 The nano rotor operating at a Reynolds number of lower than 20,000 is the main propulsion component of the rotary-wing

The efficiency of hover-capable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be improved by using aircraft configurations with ducted (shrouded) propellers (rotors). For the evaluation of propeller performance, the main parameters are thrust and power coefficients and power loading. In order to achieve their desired values, geometric shapes of the inner and outer surfaces of a duct have to be properly designed

Aerodynamic rudder is one of the useful methods to control the attitude of rotary-wing nano air vehicle (NAV)1 due to the limitation of its size and weight2–6 The interaction between nano rotor and aerodynamic rudder induces complex flow phenomenon and influences the performance of both nano rotor and rudder. Therefore, it is necessary to study the interference effect and disclose the inherent flow

Flapping wing micro air vehicles (MAVs) become much more effective than fixed-wing MAVs as the size of these vehicles decreases.1–3 The investigation of the unsteady aerodynamics of pitching airfoils is important for the investigation of animal propulsion, MAV industry, and also for the performance of rotorcrafts4 and wind turbine blades.5,6 There have been extensive studies in recent years on the

The applications of Micro air vehicles (MAV) are growing every year. One of these applications is measurement and monitoring.1–5 The MAVs can be used to transport any type of payload, from parcels6 to sensors,7 mobile node sensors or to transport the data collected by static sensor nodes.8 In this last scenario, sensor nodes cannot communicate among them, hence, they need assistance to send the measured

In the last decades, the autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have seen rapid progress. These vehicles are usually controlled and evaluated by external motion tracking system such as the VICON motion tracking system1–3 or onboards visual sensors.4–7

In the absence of tail control surface, insects can modify their wing kinematics to produce control force for attitude change during flight.1,2 In particular, shifting the stroke plane position or flapping angle range for pitch response has been found in fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster,3 and hoverflies, Eristalis tenax and Episyrphus balteatus.4 For roll and yaw responses, many insect species such

The papers in this special edition were drawn from the 10th IMAV Conference and Competition held at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, in November 2018. IMAV 2018 drew teams and authors from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America and the Netherlands. It followed a strong tradition

Airships, known as lighter-than-air vehicles, are able to fly anywhere with minimal infrastructure to generate lift without the use of aerodynamic flow around wings and also to enable controlled, powered flight, providing long endurance at low energy consumption.1 There is a growing interest in airships for long-range surveillance of military missions at-sea search and rescue, coastal surveying, fishery

A key goal in the design of many unconventional aircraft types is the combination of efficient forward flight with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities. One solution to this problem is the concept of a tiltwing aircraft. These aircraft fly like a conventional airplane in forward flight and achieve VTOL capabilities by tilting the entire wing upwards to hover.

Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) have enabled new applications in many areas.1 A wide range of those applications benefits from long endurance combined with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability. Hybrid UAV combine the advantage of helicopter hovering and fixed-wing range efficiency.2 One of the many concepts for combining long range with VTOL is the tailsitter or tilt-body hybrid UAV.3 This

Flapping flight, the only form of powered aerial locomotion in nature, involves unsteady aerodynamic phenomena that remain to be fully understood, especially at small scales and low Reynolds numbers. Such understanding would be of great benefit in the development of flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FWMAVs); the performance of the current designs1–7 remains far inferior compared to the extreme manoeuvrability

Since their first developments, drones (unpiloted aircrafts) have revolutionized flight, opening a wide range of new possibilities that were unconceivable some decades ago. Drones allow us to go further than ever and their applications, which go from military uses to observation, exploration, meteorology, audio-visuals etc., are nowadays growing exponentially in parallel to new technological developments

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are seeing widespread growth in many existing and new applications. Presently, UAVs are often operated within the line of sight (LoS), where the control delays come primarily from the control radio system in use. Entry level hobby transmitters commonly achieve latencies in the order of 20–30 ms. Advanced hobby radio systems boast ranges of 60 km.1–6

The capability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be expanded radically with aerial manipulators. They have enormous potential in building infrastructure, disaster response, parcel delivery and many other applications, due to their ability to complete difficult tasks such as aerial grasping, capturing and assembling. However, UAVs, especially multirotor drones, suffer from very low endurance as

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have experienced tremendous development during the last several decades. Currently, UAVs are widely used in various military and civilian applications due to their flexibility in configuration, low manufacturing and operating costs, and not risking pilots in demanding missions, such as surveillance, tracking, environment observation, fish finding, and law enforcement

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are more popular than ever before thanks to a diverse capability set offered by airplanes and quadcopters that incorporate modern electric power and flight controller technologies. Typically, UAV users will select an airplane for missions that are high, fast, and far, while a quadcopter may be more appropriate for missions requiring lower speeds and obstacle avoidance

Quadrotors have received considerable attention in recent years, thanks to their mechanical simplicity and good maneuverability combined with hover properties. They have offered new possibilities in a variety of fields like aerial photography, inspection and even transportation. With recent advances in on-board computation and sensor technology, aggressive maneuvering has come within reach of many

Designing a silent rotor goes through an aeroacoustic optimization, which implies understanding the aerodynamic phenomenon responsible for noise generation. Predicting the noise generated aerodynamically is relatively straightforward once detailed aerodynamic involved in the propulsion system is available through the use of direct noise computation or hybrid prediction. Aeroacoustic optimization in