Aerodynamic Prior-Free Trajectory Generation and Tracking Control for Tail-Sitter UAVs

Tail-sitter UAVs typically require labor-intensive wind tunnel tests or airframe-specific aerodynamic identification to ensure stable transitions across the full flight envelope. Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University introduce an aerodynamic prior-free framework that decouples planning from tracking. The method leverages coordinated-flight phi-theory for analytic differential flatness in planning, paired with model predictive control for online aerodynamic parameter estimation during tracking. The approach demonstrated robust real-world tracking across transition regimes, and the implementation has been released on GitHub.