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Flying wing yaw control

Posted by Joel on November 14, 2010 at 6:17pm
Can APM be programmed for non-standard yaw control? Of course it can be, but how hard will it be?

I'm building a flying wing which will not have a rudder.

I plan on controlling yaw by adding drag to a either wing which will point the nose in that direction. I'm looking at two possibilities.


1. Making the vertical stabilizers (winglets) point outwards using a servo to add drag to either wing. (on the wing tips)

2. Or using split ailerons to add drag to either wing.


Any suggestions greatly aprpeciated!

Joel



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Replies

  • Paul Thompson November 16, 2010 at 3:54am
    The control of yaw with the winglets would not be difficult, just need a servo on a split rudder on each winglet. You could connect the servos via a Y lead to the rudder channel, you would not need APM to do mixing for them. The greater issue would be the secondary effect of yaw. Any change in yaw is going to cause the aircraft to roll in the same direction, so you are going to end up with a normal turn anyway. You would need APM to correct for this
  • Developer
    Doug Weibel November 14, 2010 at 6:48pm
    Hi Joel,

    As you say - of course it can...

    What is your goal and purpose? The standard yaw control in APM provides a feedforward from the aileron command and a PID loop to drive the y axis acceleration towards zero (coordinating the turn).

    Are you intending to try skidding turns with the wing level and just using yaw control? If that is the intent perhaps vectored thrust would be better. Or, of course you could just go for a rudder or rudders. Either way, that is not the intent behind the standard yaw control in the code and you will need to change it to suit your purpose.
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