Abstract:

A distinctive feature of Distributed Electric Propulsion （DEP） aircraft is that a significant portion of the wing surface is exposed to slipstream effects generated by the electric propellers. During powered yaw control， this slipstream effect notably influences the spanwise lift and drag distribution， thereby inducing additional lateral-directional moments that affect the powered yaw turn. To address this， a Model Predictive Control （MPC） strategy that accounts for slipstream effects is proposed for the powered yaw control of DEP aircraft. First， a DEP aircraft flight dynamics model that incorporates slipstream effects is established. The slipstream effect is described using the XROTOR-vortex lattice method， resulting in a linear state-space model that meets the real-time requirements of yaw control while ensuring high fidelity. Based on this model， a powered yaw MPC strategy is designed to calculate the optimal thrust command for each electric propeller under slipstream influence. Finally， flight experiments and MATLAB-OpenVSP co-simulation are conducted to verify the effectiveness and engineering feasibility of the proposed control strategy. Simulation results demonstrate that， compared to an MPC strategy without considering slipstream effects， the proposed strategy reduces the yaw angle tracking error by 21.42% and decreases differential thrust energy consumption by 15.45%.

Key words: distributed electric propulsion, differential thrust, slipstream effect, flight control, model predictive control, flight test