Longitudinal dynamic system modeling of a fixed-wing UAV towards autonomous flight control system development: A case study of BPPT wulung UAV platform

Developing an autonomous flight control system for a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) requires the mathematical representation of the system dynamics which can be obtained by applying analytical and/or empirical methods. This paper presents a method for modeling the flight dynamics of the fixed-wing UAV by analytically developing the model structure. The aerodynamic parameters/coefficients of the UAV, to be inserted into the dynamic model, are computed using DATCOM software, by considering various flight condition determined by the angles of attack, altitudes and velocities. In addition to that, an empirical model is also formed based on flight test data, which has been already processed using Kalman filter, to validate the analytical model. By comparing the simulation result of these two systems representations, it can be seen that the both approaches produce dynamic models that have similar characteristics.