Control of a new convertible UAV with a minimal sensor suite

The paper presents a new Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) together with an associated feedback control approach. The vehicle consists of coplanar propellers and a wing that can rotate around an axis belonging to the propellers´ plane. By combining a specific geometrical design with a control strategy here proposed, we show that an efficient control of the vehicle can be obtained without air-velocity measurements. The proposed strategy is particularly suited to small aerial vehicles for which such measurements are difficult to obtain. Simulation results illustrate the approach.