Autonomous flight control system design for a Blended Wing Body

A blended wing body (BWB) UAV has several aerodynamic advantages of lower wetted area to volume ratio and lower interference drag as compared to conventional type UAV. This paper is focused on the design of the autonomous flight control system for a BWB UAV. An onboard control system is developed by using a powerful computer, navigation sensors and communication modem. The autopilot of the BWB UAV is constructed based on the stability analysis using the linearized model at trim condition. We propose a simple control allocation scheme and evaluate its performance through nonlinear simulation. Furthermore, flight test is performed using the designed autopilot and satisfactory performance is obtained in autonomous flight.