JP2009298290A - Drift flight stabilization flight machine - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a flight machine capable of attaining a stable flight at a low-speed flight, especially performing stable taking-off and landing in a crosswind. <P>SOLUTION: A wing and a trunk being a body are bonded by a joint which is turnable with three axes perpendicular to one another as a center, a drive device which is arbitrarily turned with the respective axes as a center, respectively, is provided, and thereby a roll angle, a pitch angle and a yaw angle of the wing can be arbitrarily changed. Especially, the yaw angle can be arbitrarily changed independently from the trunk, and thereby, at landing in the crosswind, for example, the wing is only rotated to a windward side at a predetermined angle and the trunk is directed to a direction of a runway. Thereby, a wheel is oriented in a direction of the runway and a stable slide becomes possible. Thereby, difficult landing operation at a drift flight in a conventional fixed wing machine is not required and an easily-maneuvered flight machine can be obtained. Furthermore, the wing and the trunk are connected by an stretching/contraction mechanism capable of being set to an arbitrary distance and may be also controlled in associaiton with the drive device. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention is a flying machine having a pendulum posture stabilization structure provided with a wing that can be freely changed in angle with respect to the fuselage, so that it is possible to easily perform take-off and landing by stable drift flight even in a crosswind. The present invention relates to a drift flight stabilization flight machine.

  The current transportation system is shifting from public transportation to personal transportation like the popularization of private cars, which is a factor that greatly changes the living environment structure and social structure such as the development of suburban retailing. However, the transition from public transportation to personal transportation has been realized only by land transportation. This is due to a technical problem, and if sufficient technology is in place, air transportation, which currently only has public transportation, will surely shift to personal transportation. As a technique for solving the technical problem, the present inventor has proposed a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-138461 (Patent Document 1).

  In addition to the above-described prior art (Patent Document 1), Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-040897 (Patent Document 2) and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 09-1099999 (Patent Document 3) disclose aircraft having lightweight wings. Has been. However, since the main wing is fixed to the fuselage and cannot be controlled by a power joint, a tail wing exists. There are also non-patent documents as shown below.

  Furthermore, the present inventor has developed the wing and the main body separately for the various flying machines as described above, so that they can be used in combination as appropriate after being manufactured, and to enable stable flight in the air. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-341815 (Patent Document 4) discloses a flying machine having a mechanism for absorbing external disturbances and shocks.

  In the said patent document 4 which this inventor has proposed, the flying machine as shown in FIG. 7 is proposed. That is, as shown in FIG. 7A, the overall structure is such that the lightweight wing 51 and the body 52 are connected by an extension shaft 53 that performs a suspension function, and a power joint 54 is connected to the connecting portion between the extension shaft 53 and the lightweight wing 51. I have. In the example shown in the figure, a turbojet engine 55 is provided on the left and right of the fuselage 52, and wheels 56 are provided on the lower part of the fuselage 52.

  FIG. 7 (b) shows an example of the manufactured testing machine. The power joint 54 is an electric servo equipped with a rotary encoder capable of precise angle detection. The roll angle adjustment drive unit 57 that controls the inclination of the wing in the left-right direction by enabling rotation control around the X-axis, and the Y-axis as the center when the left-right direction of the fuselage is set as the Y-axis. A pitch angle adjustment drive unit 58 is provided which controls the inclination of the blades in the front-rear direction by enabling rotation control.

  In the above-described flying machine, particularly when controlling the roll angle of the wing, stable flight is enabled by the attitude control mechanism as modeled in FIG. Since this control mechanism is shown in detail in the above-mentioned patent document 4, detailed explanation is omitted here, but basically the pendulum fulcrum is moved by an object having a large air resistance in the motion equation of the pendulum. Will be considered.

In the example shown in FIG. 8, the flying object receives a disturbance T _z and the attitude is inclined at an angle θ ₁ with respect to the horizontal plane, and the servo motor is operated to correct the attitude. In this roll attitude control model, an equation of motion is obtained when the roll direction of the airframe is determined so that the counterclockwise direction in the figure is positive, and can be linearly approximated by simplifying to θ ₁ = 0. Controllable by control theory. In such a flight machine system, if the servo motor of the power joint is designed to operate by position control by an encoder, the wings are automatically kept horizontal by the weight of the main body, and the function of the spring and damper in the direction of the rotation axis Can also carry out stable flight.
JP 2005-138461 A Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-040897 JP 09-1099999 A JP 2006-341815 A Hiroya Iwata "Study on space mobile robot (1st report)" Proceedings of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers System Integration Division 2004 Hiroya Iwata "Study on space mobile robot (2nd report)" The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers Robot Mechatronics Division Proceedings

  The above-mentioned flying machine proposed by the present inventor has been able to be a flying machine that can easily cope with a steady disturbance, but this flying machine is a flying machine suitable for personal use. Therefore, it is necessary to take off and land in a relatively narrow space, and therefore it is necessary to take off and land at a low speed. Therefore, it is desired to develop a method capable of performing more stable flight particularly during takeoff and landing.

  In addition, because personal flight machines are lightweight, it is considered that they are easily affected by crosswinds during takeoff and landing. During drifting flight, the yaw angle is adjusted so that the nose is directed toward the windward side by a slight drift angle. At that time, the fuselage is tilted somewhat, and the conventional drifting airplane taking off and landing shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, it was confirmed that the windward side wheel 16 touches the ground before the leeward side wheel 15 when landing, and the phenomenon of leaving the ground later when taking off was confirmed.

  Regarding conventional drift wing aircraft, when drifting under crosswind conditions, drifting flight was continued until just before landing by adjusting the yaw angle, then drifting flight was released immediately before landing and the nose was facing. A flight method that matches the direction of the aircraft with the center line of the runway is performed. This is a technology covered by the pilot's maneuvering method and maneuvering skill because the fixed wing aircraft has a structure that the main wing direction and fuselage direction cannot be changed separately. If this is mistaken, it may lead to a major accident such as driving at a high speed outside the runway immediately after landing.

  In addition, there is no conventional fixed wing aircraft having a deformed structure in which the posture is greatly stabilized only during takeoff and landing. This is because the small stability improvement by the auxiliary wings such as flaps is considered to be sufficient in practical use, and in the case of aerodynamic control using the auxiliary wings and tail wings, the speed is inversely proportional to the square of the speed. This is because the control force is lost, and there is a principle aspect in which a dramatic change in characteristics cannot be expected with a single rigid structure in which the main wing and the fuselage are fixed.

  Therefore, the present invention mainly provides a flying machine that can stably perform normal take-off and landing flight, and that can stably and reliably perform take-off and landing at the time of drifting flight corresponding to a crosswind. It is aimed.

  In order to solve the above problems, a flying machine according to the present invention combines a wing and a body, which is a main body, with joints that can rotate around three axes orthogonal to each other, and each of the three axes is arbitrarily set around the three axes. A rotating drive device is provided, and the roll angle, pitch angle, and yaw angle of the wing can be arbitrarily changed independently of the fuselage.

  Another flying machine according to the present invention is characterized in that, in the flying machine, the wings are directed toward the windward side of the cross wind when the fuselage is directed in the traveling direction due to the change in the yaw angle.

  Another flying machine according to the present invention is such that, in the flying machine, the wing and the fuselage are connected by an expansion / contraction mechanism that can be set to an arbitrary distance, and the expansion / contraction mechanism is controlled in association with the driving device. Features.

  By configuring the present invention as described above, it becomes possible to stably fly at low speeds such as during take-off and landing, and in particular, since a joint that can arbitrarily change the yaw angle is further used, it is compatible with crosswinds. Thus, the flying machine can stably and reliably perform takeoff and landing at the time of drifting flight.

  In the present invention, in order to stably perform take-off and landing in a crosswind, the wing and the fuselage as a main body are coupled by a joint that can rotate around three axes orthogonal to each other, and the three axes And a wing roll angle, a pitch angle, and a yaw angle can be arbitrarily changed independently of the fuselage.

  As mentioned above, in order to cope with crosswinds in conventional fixed wing airplanes, the nose is lowered toward the wind by an angle according to the direction and strength of the wind, especially during landing, and the nose is just before landing. It required an advanced operation to match the direction of the runway and thereby adapt the wheels to the runway direction. Such a high-level operation is considered to be a big problem for a light aircraft operator targeted by the airplane of the present invention. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, during a steady flight without a crosswind, the aircraft flies as shown in FIG. 3 (a) and can land in this posture during landing, whereas a crosswind exists as shown in FIG. 3 (b). Sometimes it is necessary to land with the nose facing upwind by an angle α. If landing as it is, at the time of steady landing where the original cross wind does not exist, for example, as shown in FIG. 4 (a), the left and right wheels 15, 16 can land at the same time, whereas there is cross wind as described above. If the drifting flight is performed at this time, the right wheel 16 in the figure, which is the windward side, first lands as shown in FIG.

  In order to cope with such a problem, the present invention uses a power joint mechanism that the wing and the fuselage previously proposed by the present inventor are relatively movable, and the X axis and the Y axis are In addition to a mechanism that rotates about the center, a mechanism that rotates about the Z-axis is also added to facilitate the drifting flight. That is, as shown in FIG. 1B, which is an enlarged view of the power joint mechanism of FIG. 1A, the three-axis power joint mechanism 4 according to the present invention is a control unit of the conventional power joint mechanism. When the front-rear direction is the X-axis, rotation control is possible around this X-axis, and the roll angle adjustment drive unit 12 that controls the inclination of the wing in the left-right direction, and the Y-axis when the left-right direction of the fuselage is the Y-axis In addition to the pitch angle adjustment drive unit 13 that controls the tilt of the wing in the front-rear direction, the rotation can be controlled around the axis, and when the vertical direction of the aircraft is the Z axis, the rotation can be controlled around the Z axis. And a yaw angle adjustment drive unit 17 for controlling the direction of the blades.

  Thereby, in the flying machine according to the present invention, for example, as shown in FIG. 2, when the crosswind is blowing from the left side in the figure during takeoff and landing, instead of turning the conventional nose to the windward side, the yaw angle of FIG. The adjustment drive unit 17 can rotate the wing about the Z axis and direct only the wing toward the windward side. By performing drift flight as a countermeasure against such cross winds, the aircraft will land in a state consistent with the direction of the runway, so the wheels will face the runway direction and the left and right wheels will land at the same time. It is possible to make a stable flight after takeoff. By automating this yaw angle control, the operator can easily take off and landing for drifting flight without requiring special techniques.

  In the above embodiment, in order to stabilize the flying machine that connects the wing and the fuselage with the power joint, the three-axis r power joint can be stably taken off and landing even when the crosswind is strong. In addition to the example of using the mechanism, in addition, by adopting a method that connects with a telescopic mechanism that can separate the distance between the wing and the fuselage at the time of takeoff and landing of the flying machine, more stable takeoff and landing is possible Become.

  That is, FIG. 5 shows a flying machine 1 in which the wing 2 and the fuselage 3 targeted by the present invention are connected by a three-axis power joint mechanism 4, and the wing 2 and the fuselage 3 are provided with the three-axis power joint mechanism 4 at one end. The example of the flying machine 1 connected with the expansion-contraction mechanism 5 is shown. 4 shows an example in which the distance between the wing 2 and the fuselage 3 is changed by bending in a U-shape, and FIG. (B) shows a state during low-speed steady flight and a stationary stop, (c) shows a state during transition to take-off and landing flight, and (d) shows a state during take-off and landing flight.

  The expansion / contraction mechanism 5 of FIG. 5 is schematically shown to explain its function, and the expansion / contraction mechanism 5 bent in a dogleg shape is fixed to the base 6 fixed to the body 3 and movable to two upper and lower positions. The lower arm 7 is fixed so as to be rotatable about a rotation shaft 8, and the other end portion of the lower arm 7 and one end portion of the upper arm 9 are freely rotated by a rotation shaft 10 driven by a separate motor. Further, the other end of the upper arm 9 is rotatably connected to the power joint 4 by a rotation shaft 11 to constitute a link mechanism as a whole. Such a telescopic mechanism 5 according to the present invention sets the wing and the body at an arbitrary distance.

  In the flying machine 1 having the above-described configuration, the lower arm 7 and the upper arm 9 are most bent around the rotation shaft 10 during high-speed flight shown in FIG. Since the vertically movable base 6 is positioned at the lowermost position, the distance L1 between the lowermost portion on the lower surface of the wing 2 and the upper surface portion of the fuselage 3 is substantially zero, thereby fixing the conventional fixing. It has the same structure as the wing and flies at high speed in this state. During such high-speed flight, it is resistant to disturbance and the flight is stable, so there is no need to use the function of the power joint 4. Therefore, the power joint 4 is also drawn into the fuselage and flies in a posture with the least air resistance. .

  At the time of low-speed steady flight that flies at a relatively low speed, as shown in FIG. 5B, the base 6 is set to a normal ascending position, and at least the power joint 4 is in a freely operating state. The power joint 4 acting here is as described above with reference to FIG. 1. In particular, when controlling the wing roll angle, a stable flight is enabled by a posture control mechanism as modeled in FIG. This control mechanism basically takes into account that the pendulum fulcrum is moved by an object having a large air resistance in the equation of motion of the pendulum, so that stable flight is possible even during low-speed steady flight. At this time, the distance L2 between the lowermost portion of the lower surface of the wing 2 and the upper surface portion of the fuselage 3 is substantially the height of the telescopic mechanism 5 folded with the power joint 4. Note that after the landing of the flying machine, the telescopic mechanism is most retracted as shown in FIG.

  In the present invention, the distance between the fuselage 3 and the wing can be adjusted by such a link mechanism having the power joint 4 at the end. Since stable flight is required, the rotating portion is rotated so as to open the lower arm 7 and the upper arm 9, and these arms are gradually opened, for example, as shown in FIG. Finally, as shown in FIG. 5 (d), the upper arm 9 and the lower arm 10 are in a straight line, and L4 having the largest interval can be obtained. In such a flight machine system, if the servo motor of the power joint is designed to operate by position control by an encoder, the wings are automatically kept horizontal by the weight of the main body, and the function of the spring and damper in the direction of the rotation axis Can also carry out stable flight. As a result, the pendulum stability is improved and the flight during take-off and landing can be further stabilized.

  In addition, by making the distance between the wing and the fuselage variable as described above, the air resistance is reduced and the flight performance is improved, but since the pendulum cannot be stabilized, auxiliary wings such as spoilers and ailerons are provided, You may comprise so that it may have a switching structure which flies by switching to attitude control and steering control by the aerodynamic action.

  Various control of the wing in the flying machine according to the present invention as described above can be performed by performing desired control by, for example, the control device shown in the functional block diagram of FIG. In the control device for the flying machine shown in FIG. 6, the wing operating system control unit 21 primarily stores various data in the CPU 22 that performs calculations, the ROM 23 that stores software for performing predetermined operations of various devices, and the like. A RAM 24 and the like are provided so that various controls as described later can be comprehensively controlled while being associated with other controllers.

  The blade support length control unit 25 connected to the blade operation system control unit 21 controls the length of the telescopic mechanism 5 as shown in FIGS. 5 (a) to 5 (d). , The blade support length adjustment drive unit 26 is controlled to adjust the length, and the blade support length at that time is detected by the blade support length detection unit 27, so that feedback control is performed to obtain a desired blade support length. . In addition, in the example of FIG. 5, since the whole including the expansion and contraction mechanism 5 is retracted to the body 3 side, a mechanism for moving the base 6 is included, thereby enabling flight in a fixed wing state particularly during high-speed flight. For stable flight in such a fixed wing state, the wing is provided with various auxiliary wings used in the fixed wing flying machine, such as Enron and spoiler, and can be controlled by an auxiliary wing control unit 42 described later. Also good.

  In the blade angle control unit 28, when the three-axis power joint mechanism 14 that can be driven to rotate about the X, Y, and Z axes as shown in FIG. 1B is used, the roll angle control unit 29 in FIG. Then, a control signal is output to the roll angle adjustment drive unit 32 to adjust the roll angle adjustment unit 17 that rotates the wing about the X axis in the drawing, which is the axis of the aircraft in the flight direction. At this time, the roll angle sensor 33 detects the actual roll angle of the blade and performs feedback control.

  The pitch angle control unit 30 in the blade angle control unit 28 outputs a control signal to the pitch angle adjustment drive unit 34, and the pitch angle for rotating the blade about the Y axis in the figure, which is an axis extending in the left-right direction of the airframe. The adjustment unit 18 is adjusted. At that time, the pitch angle sensor 35 detects the actual pitch angle of the blade and performs feedback control. Further, the yaw angle control unit 31 in the blade angle control unit 28 outputs a control signal to the yaw angle adjustment drive unit 36, and rotates the blade about the Z axis in the figure which is an axis extending in the vertical direction of the airframe. The yaw angle adjustment drive unit 17 is adjusted. Even in that case, the yaw angle of the actual blade is detected by the yaw angle sensor 37, and feedback control is performed.

  In the example shown in FIG. 6, the wing operating system control unit 21 is also connected to an engine control unit 40 that controls the first jet engine 38 and the second jet engine 39, and the wing operating system control unit 21 is related to the operating state of the engine. So that it can be controlled. At that time, the engine operating sensor 41 detects the operating conditions such as the engine speed of the first jet engine 38 and the second jet engine 39, and the engine control unit 40 enables predetermined control based on the sensor signal. A signal from the engine operation sensor 41 is also input to the blade operation system control unit 21 so that it can be used as a control signal for the blade support length control unit 25 and the blade angle control unit 28.

  The auxiliary wing control unit 42 originally does not necessarily require an auxiliary wing such as Enron on the wing in this flying machine, but when the wing is retracted for high speed flight as described above, the fixed wing Therefore, the auxiliary wing control unit 42 can perform automatic control when it is not manually operated by the operator. The GPS / INS 43 receives a GPS signal, performs data interpolation processing with an inertial navigation system (INS), accurately detects the current position of the moving flying machine, and further detects the altitude based on the signal if necessary. . The speed sensor 44 detects the speed of the flying machine, the wind direction wind sensor 45 detects the wind direction around the flying machine and the wind force thereof, and the yaw angle control unit 31 in the wing angle control unit 28 uses the detection signal. The display unit 46 displays the operating status of each functional unit, and the measurement values of various sensors can be displayed around the operator.

  In such a control system, signals from various sensors may be transmitted by wire as well as wirelessly if necessary. In that case, in order to prevent crosstalk of signals, the transmission frequency is appropriately changed according to the signal. In addition, when an optical sensor is used as a sensor, a photo relay that converts a detection signal based on light into an electrical signal is used. Further, in the signal transmission path, all of the sensor signal and the control signal can be converted into light via a high-speed photorelay and processed.

  In the control system of FIG. 6, the wing support length control unit 25 and the wing angle control unit 28 are both provided with the yaw angle control unit 31, and the yaw angle control method and flow chart of the present invention described in FIGS. Although the example when applying both the flight stabilization method using the expansion and contraction mechanism described in FIG. 5 is shown, it is possible to stably carry out drift flight in a crosswind by providing at least only the wing angle control unit. Thus, a remarkable effect can be obtained as compared with the conventional technique.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS It is a figure which shows the Example of this invention, (a) is a perspective view which shows the whole structure of a flying machine, (b) is an expansion schematic diagram of a 3 axis | shaft power joint mechanism. It is a top view which shows the state which performs the takeoff and landing at the time of a crosswind by this invention. It is a front view which shows the state at the time of the takeoff and landing of a fixed wing flight machine, (a) shows the steady state without a crosswind, (b) is a front view which shows the state at the time of a crosswind. It is a front view which shows the difference in the take-off and landing state at the time of the flight which received the crosswind in the flying machine, and the normal wind. It is explanatory drawing which shows the example which added the aspect which couple | bonded a wing | blade and a fuselage | body with an expansion-contraction mechanism to this invention. It is a control system figure when implementing this invention. It is a figure of the flying machine which this inventor has proposed previously. It is explanatory drawing which shows the pendulum stability of the flying machine.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Flying machine 2 Wing 3 Body 4 Power joint 5 Telescopic mechanism 6 Base 7 Lower arm 8 Rotating shaft 9 Upper arm 10 Rotating shaft 11 Rotating shaft 12 Roll angle adjustment drive unit 13 Pitch angle adjustment drive unit 14 Triaxial power Joint mechanism 15 wheel 16 wheel 17 yaw angle adjustment drive unit

Claims (3)

  A wing and a fuselage, which are main bodies, are coupled by joints that can rotate around three axes orthogonal to each other, and each has a driving device that rotates arbitrarily around the three axes, and the roll angle and pitch angle of the wing A flying machine characterized in that the yaw angle can be arbitrarily changed independently of the fuselage.   2. The flying machine according to claim 1, wherein the wing is directed toward the windward side of the cross wind when the fuselage is directed in the traveling direction due to the change in the yaw angle.   The flying machine according to claim 1, wherein the wing and the fuselage are connected by an expansion / contraction mechanism that can be set to an arbitrary distance, and the expansion / contraction mechanism is controlled in association with the driving device.

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