Exploration for custom outer-loop control system for automonomous landing of M-Fly PADA

The M-Fly Student Design Team is an university design team that focused on the design, construction, and testing of R/C aircraft. These aircraft compete in comptetition and must complete objectives to earn points. One of the tennants of the 2022 competition required that the 'mothership' aircraft drop lightweight powered aircraft that is capable of flying to and landing at a designated landing site. As part of a project class, I lead of team of four students to experimentally characterize the PADA airframe ina wind tunnel and design a lightweight hardware system that can be used as a control-system testbed. Some of the actions we took were to:

Design 1.5 ounce arduino based avionics control system hardware capable of full state estimation (Position, Velocity, Euler Angles, Euler Angle Rates) integrating GPS, altimeter, accelerometer and rate gyroscope.

Experimentally characterize a scale model of the PADA in the University of Michigan 2' x 2' wind tunnel, which allowed for understanding of the airframe's stability and control characteristics

Designed and manufactured scale model of airframe for windtunnel use using laser-cut wood sheets and Monokote film

Adapted existing Arduino roll control code implementation to enable course-hold and constant descent control schemes as first-pass in control code architecture

Provided recommendations to M-Fly leadership on future control system design, architecture, and development plan to facilitate PADA design and testing in future design cycles