An aircraft may include a tail having a rudder and a pair of wings. The pair of wings may include at least one flap and at least one roll control device. The aircraft may also include at least two thrust-producing devices. The aircraft may also include a differential thrust control system including a computing device having at least one processor. The at least one processer may be configured to control an attitude of the aircraft by selectively operating the at least two thrust-producing devices, the rudder, and the at least one roll control device based at least in part on a plurality of conditions provided by a plurality of sensors on the aircraft and a selected mode setting of a mode control panel. The computing device may be communicatively coupled to the at least two thrust-producing devices, the rudder, and the at least one roll control device.

Physical and logical components of a long line loiter control system address control of a long line loiter maneuver conducted beneath a carrier, such as a fixed-wing aircraft. Control may comprise identifying, predicting, and reacting to estimated states and predicted states of the carrier, a suspended load control system, and a long line. Identifying, predicting, and reacting to estimated states and predicted states may comprise determining characteristics of state conditions over time as well as response time between state conditions. Reacting may comprise controlling a hoist of the carrier, controlling thrusters of the suspended load control system, and or controlling or issuing flight control instructions to the carrier so as not to increase the response time and or to avoid a hazard.

A system and method for determining the wind force along the planned trajectory of a projectile are disclosed herein. A drone is flown along the expected path of the trajectory along a set heading. The drone is programmed to maintain the heading. As wind forces act upon the drone during its flight, the drone's electronic stability system provides automatic power and directional control to one or more motors that control the rotors and propellers that keep the drone aloft. By monitoring the changes in motor or drone state information over time in response to wind forces, the wind can be determined at various locations along the flight path. This information can be provided to a ballistics calculator to determine the launch heading of the projectile.

A flow control system includes a movable wing attachable to a wing of an aircraft, and a plasma actuator mountable on a surface of the movable wing. The flow control system is configured to control air flow around the wing by having the changing of the steering angle of the movable wing work in conjunction with the operation of the plasma actuator.

Various systems benefit from suitable mechanisms and methods for dealing with sensor inaccuracy. For example, various attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) approaches may benefit from systems and methods for providing multiple strapdown solutions. A system can include a plurality of three-axis sensors configured to measure physical quantities (e.g. acceleration, rotational rate), from which can be computed roll, pitch, and heading for a device. The system can also include a controller configured to receive output of the plurality of three-axis sensors as a plurality of inputs, determine a plurality of strapdown solutions each solution of the plurality of solutions based on respective output of the plurality of three-axis sensors, each of which consists of roll, pitch, and possibly heading, weight each output of the plurality of output solutions based on a relation between a given output solution and the other output solutions of the plurality of solutions, and report the roll, pitch, and heading of the device.

A system including a set of computation modules configured to be utilized for computation of gains of at least one piloting law relative to at least one piloting axis of the aircraft and a data capture unit for capturing in at least one computation unit associated with a given piloting axis of the aircraft first values illustrating aerodynamic coefficients of the aircraft and second values defining delay and filter characteristics of the control chain relative to the given piloting axis, the computation unit being configured to compute the gains of the piloting law utilizing at least a part of the set of computation modules and the computation unit computing inputs intended for at least one actuator of a control surface adapted to control the aircraft relative to the given piloting axis in accordance with a corresponding current control value.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a method of operating a rotorcraft includes receiving a measured yaw rate from a yaw rate sensor or a measured lateral acceleration from a lateral acceleration sensor of the rotorcraft, filtering the measured yaw rate or the measured lateral acceleration using a filter to form a filtered measured yaw rate or a filtered measured lateral acceleration, and regulating a yaw rate or a lateral acceleration of the rotorcraft based on the measured yaw rate or the measured lateral acceleration. The filter includes a bandpass characteristic or a notch characteristic, and the filtering is configured to reduce lateral vibrations caused by airflow in a tail section of the rotorcraft.

A method for controlling an overdetermined system with multiple actuators, for example an aircraft (1) with multiple propulsion units (3). The actuators perform at least one primary task and at least one non-primary task, including: a) determining a pseudo-control command u.sub.p?.sup.p based on a physical model of the system, which command represents the torques (L, M, N) and a total thrust force (F) acting on the system, b) determining a control matrix D, D?.sup.p?k according to u.sub.p=Du, where u.sub.1=D.sup.?1u.sub.pu.sub.1?.sup.k represents a control command for the actuators to perform the primary task, c) projecting the non-primary task into the null space N(D) of the primary task, so that Du.sub.2=0 if u.sub.2u.sub.2?.sup.k represents a control command for the actuators to perform the non-primary task, and d) providing the control commands from b) and c) to the actuators. In this way, the solution of the primary task is not adversely affected by the non-primary task or its solution.

A method for determining a maneuvering reserve in an aircraft having a number of propulsion units, preferably a multirotor VTOL aircraft, most preferably an aircraft with electrically operated drive units for the rotors, including the steps: a) Determining a control vector, ?, for the aircraft, ?=(L M N F).sup.T, the components of which represent control torques of the aircraft around the roll axis, L, the pitch axis, M, and the yaw axis, N, and a total thrust, F, b) Approximating an existing four-dimensional control volume, D, of the aircraft by a four-dimensional ellipsoid, E, the axes of which represent the control torques, L, M, N, of the aircraft and the total thrust, F, c) Determining a normalized control vector, ?.sub.ind=(L.sub.ind M.sub.ind N.sub.ind F.sub.ind).sup.T for the aircraft, using axis dimensions, L.sub.max, M.sub.max, N.sub.max, F.sub.max, of the ellipsoid, in particular semi-axis dimensions of the ellipsoid; and d) Outputting at least the normalized control vector, ?.sub.ind, for determining a permissible flight maneuver in at least one dimension of the four-dimensional control volume.

A method of operating a multicopter comprising a body and n thrusters, each thruster independently actuated to vector thrust angularly relative to the body about at least a first axis, the method comprising modelling dynamics of the multicopter with a mathematical model comprising coupled, non-linear combinations of thruster variables, decoupling the mathematical model into linear combinations of thruster control variables, sensing at least one characteristic of multicopter dynamics, comparing the sensed data with corresponding target characteristic(s), computing adjustments in thruster control variables for reducing the difference between the sensed data and the target characteristic(s) according to a control algorithm, and actuating each thruster according to the computed thruster control variables to converge the multicopter towards the target characteristic(s), wherein the control algorithm is based on the decoupled mathematical model such that each thruster control variable can be adjusted independently.