Parameter Identification of a QuadPlane VTOL Drone Model by means of Reverse Engineering Techniques for Flight Control System Purposes

The aim of this thesis work is to identify the model parameters, both the inertial terms and the aerodynamic ones, of a new drone concept. Based on reverse engineering philosophy, the proposed techniques represents the new way the aerospace industry of drones is going to meet. All over the world the application of drones for the most disparate purposes is advancing exponentially and the need to bring new effective and efficient solutions to the market cannot ignore considering what has been done up to now for the drone industry. In this sense one wants to include reverse engineering in the process of developing new concepts. Working on a purchased commercial drone model in a quad-plane configuration, this work aims to demonstrate how it is possible to obtain models and tools useful for producing a new product optimized for a specific task or mission starting from a fully developed product. Particularly the thesis focuses on the need of a dynamic model for the design of a specific automatic flight control systems for the transition phase of the drone from hovering to level flight because, as from observations and tests, it has been revealed to be the most critic phase of the flight. In order to design such an autopilot the static parameters of the model of the longitudinal dynamics has been identified through CFD simulations and CAD tools. The 3D model of the drone has been obtained using the scan-to-cad technique.