The attitude control of fixed-wing MAVS in turbulent environments

The small scale and portability of fixed-wing Micro Aerial Vehicles lend them to many unique applications, however their utility is often limited by ineffective attitude control in turbulent environments. The performance of attitude control systems themselves are affected by a variety of factors. Assessment of this system's performance needs to be viewed in relation to the MAVs' unique constraints. Certain aspects and limitations of MAV attitude control related issues are addressed in the literature, but to fully address the degradation of utility, the entire system must be examined. These issues can only be fully addressed when considering them concurrently. There is no framework for defining the attitude control problem explicitly for MAVs. This paper attempts to (1) Define the MAV attitude control problem with respect to the unique constraints imposed by this class of Unmanned Aircraft; (2) Review current design trends of MAVs with respect to vulnerability to atmospheric turbulence. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.