Lateral Fractional Order Controller Design and Tuning for a Flying-Wing UAS

It is important to develop stable and robust controllers for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) that fly in the turbulent Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). This paper introduces a new fractional order controller design and tuning method for roll tracking of a flying-wing UAS. The proposed factional order proportional derivative (FOPD) controller is designed to meet multiple objectives including gain margin, phase margin, overshoot, etc. The controller gains are determined by genetic algorithm based optimization. The developed FOPD controller was validated using an identified lateral UAS dynamics model. The proposed FOPD controller showed better performance in turbulence rejection when compared with a classical PD controller.