Tailsitter aircraft attract considerable interest due to their capabilities of both agile hover and high speed forward flight. However, traditional tailsitters that use aerodynamic control surfaces face the challenge of limited control effectiveness and associated actuator saturation during vertical flight and transitions. Conversely, tailsitters relying solely on tilting rotors have the drawback of insufficient roll control authority in forward flight. This paper proposes a tilt-rotor tailsitter aircraft with both elevons and tilting rotors as a promising solution. By implementing a cascaded weighted least squares (WLS) based incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI) controller, the drone successfully achieved autonomous waypoint tracking in outdoor experiments at a cruise airspeed of 16 m/s, including transitions between forward flight and hover without actuator saturation. Wind tunnel experiments confirm improved roll control compared to tilt-rotor-only configurations, while comparative outdoor flight tests highlight the vehicle's superior control over elevon-only designs during critical phases such as vertical descent and transitions. Finally, we also show that the tilt-rotors allow for an autonomous takeoff and landing with a unique pivoting capability that demonstrates stability and robustness under wind disturbances.

翻译：尾坐式飞机因其兼具敏捷悬停与高速前飞能力而备受关注。然而，传统采用气动控制面的尾坐式飞机面临垂直飞行与过渡阶段控制效能有限及相关执行器饱和的挑战。相反，仅依赖倾转旋翼的尾坐式飞机则存在前飞阶段滚转控制权限不足的缺点。本文提出一种兼具升降副翼与倾转旋翼的尾坐式飞机作为有前景的解决方案。通过实施基于级联加权最小二乘法的增量非线性动态逆控制器，该无人机在巡航空速16米/秒的户外实验中成功实现了自主航点跟踪，包括前飞与悬停间的过渡，且未出现执行器饱和现象。风洞实验证实了相较于纯倾转旋翼构型，其滚转控制性能得到提升；而对比户外飞行测试则凸显了该飞行器在垂直下降与过渡等关键阶段相对于纯升降副翼设计具有更优的控制能力。最后，我们还展示了倾转旋翼支持下的自主起降功能，其独特的枢轴转向能力在风扰条件下表现出良好的稳定性与鲁棒性。