Design, model and attitude control of a model-scaled gyroplane

Autogyro or gyroplane as the first rotorcraft and a type of classical V/STOL aerial vehicle has become a hot point in academia and industry. Progresses have been achieved in many research areas such as aerodynamics, structure, flight dynamics, modeling identification. But a sparse contemporary research on autogyro emphasizes the control of autogyro/gyroplane. Our motivation is to design an autopilot for an unmanned gyroplane. First, the unmanned gyroplane was designed based on an advanced radio-controlled gyroplane and the PX4 open-source flight management unit. Then, dynamics model was obtained through the CFD and aerodynamic estimation method. A fly-to-trim method was used to trim the aircraft and stability characteristics were analyzed at different speeds. Finally, the attitude controller was designed with incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion method.