Acceleration-Based Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs for Guidance Applications
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866912930163851264 |
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| author | Wang, Jixiang Yang, Siyuan Wu, Ziyi Wei, Siqi Wakode, Ashay Barcis, Agata Nguyen, Hung He, Shaoming |
| author_facet | Wang, Jixiang Yang, Siyuan Wu, Ziyi Wei, Siqi Wakode, Ashay Barcis, Agata Nguyen, Hung He, Shaoming |
| contents | Acceleration-commanded guidance laws (e.g., proportional navigation) are attractive for high-level decision making, but their direct deployment on fixed-wing UAVs is challenging because accelerations are not directly actuated and must be realized through attitude and thrust under flight-envelope constraints. This paper presents an acceleration-level outer-loop control framework that converts commanded tangential and normal accelerations into executable body-rate and normalized thrust commands compatible with mainstream autopilots (e.g., PX4/APM). For the normal channel, we derive an engineering mapping from the desired normal acceleration to roll- and pitch-rate commands that regulate the direction and magnitude of the lift vector under small-angle assumptions. For the tangential channel, we introduce an energy-based formulation inspired by total energy control and identify an empirical thrust-energy acceleration relationship directly from flight data, avoiding explicit propulsion modeling or thrust bench calibration. We further discuss priority handling between normal and tangential accelerations under saturation and non-level maneuvers. Extensive real-flight experiments on a VTOL fixed-wing platform demonstrate accurate acceleration tracking and enable practical implementation of proportional navigation using only body-rate and normalized thrust interfaces. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_23821 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Acceleration-Based Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs for Guidance Applications Wang, Jixiang Yang, Siyuan Wu, Ziyi Wei, Siqi Wakode, Ashay Barcis, Agata Nguyen, Hung He, Shaoming Robotics Acceleration-commanded guidance laws (e.g., proportional navigation) are attractive for high-level decision making, but their direct deployment on fixed-wing UAVs is challenging because accelerations are not directly actuated and must be realized through attitude and thrust under flight-envelope constraints. This paper presents an acceleration-level outer-loop control framework that converts commanded tangential and normal accelerations into executable body-rate and normalized thrust commands compatible with mainstream autopilots (e.g., PX4/APM). For the normal channel, we derive an engineering mapping from the desired normal acceleration to roll- and pitch-rate commands that regulate the direction and magnitude of the lift vector under small-angle assumptions. For the tangential channel, we introduce an energy-based formulation inspired by total energy control and identify an empirical thrust-energy acceleration relationship directly from flight data, avoiding explicit propulsion modeling or thrust bench calibration. We further discuss priority handling between normal and tangential accelerations under saturation and non-level maneuvers. Extensive real-flight experiments on a VTOL fixed-wing platform demonstrate accurate acceleration tracking and enable practical implementation of proportional navigation using only body-rate and normalized thrust interfaces. |
| title | Acceleration-Based Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs for Guidance Applications |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23821 |