The Development of an UAV Flight Simulator and Its Application

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method which employs the optimal flight controls of a point mass model to a rigid body model in order to realize the optimal guidance controls for an autonomous UAV. In the first stage of this study, we had developed an UAV flight simulator. A point mass model as well as a rigid body model is incorporated into the simulation programs because it is utilized in order to obtain optimal controls by solving two-point boundary-value problems. All proper model parameters of the point mass model were estimated by simulations with the flight simulator. Four control inputs of the rigid body model were produced based on three control inputs of the point mass model. Both models’ simulation results of some flight maneuvers showed good correspondence and our approach was justified by solving a simple optimal control problem of an UAV.