Application of a Switching Control Strategy to Extract Energy from Turbulence by a Fixed-wing UAV

Federico Pasquali (1) , Yves Brière (1) , Nikola Gavrilovic (2)

1 DCAS - Département Conception et conduite des véhicules Aéronautiques et Spatiaux
2 DAEP - Département Aérodynamique Energétique et Propulsion

The objective of this paper is to design a control law to allow a small fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to extract energy from atmospheric turbulence. From literature data the properties of atmospheric gusts at low altitude are discussed and a single point measurement is proved to be representative of the wind field. The longitudinal flight dynamics of the aircraft is analyzed and the phugoid mode is found to be the main driver of the energy extraction process. A switching controller that places the poles of the phugoid mode depending on the instantaneous variation of energy of the aircraft is designed. Statistical simulations show an increase of energy of the aircraft when this strategy is applied.

Mots clés: Robotics; UAV-Energy harvesting

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Federico Pasquali, Yves Brière, Nikola Gavrilovic. Application of a Switching Control Strategy to Extract Energy from Turbulence by a Fixed-wing UAV. 9th International Micro Air Vehicle conference and flight competition (IMAV2017), Sep 2017, Toulouse, France. pp.29-36. ⟨hal-01994455⟩