derrick_chi

Hi All

I was wonder if you'll might be able to help me out with something. I am trying to understand the pros and cons of mixing the ailerons and elevator versus leaving them to work independently. Can you guys give me some advice as to which setup I should choose and stick with. The plane I'll be flying is the B2 Stealth Bomber by Banana Hobby, and I was thinking it will be easier to controll if I seperated the control surfaces to allow the autopilot system to control them each independently of the each other. As the software stands now, each action (roll, yaw, and picth) are considered independently and controlled independently, in simulation the planes I've been flying seem to use mixing, however I believe I would get better results from the current algorithm if each of the control surfaces were controlled independently, what are your thoughts?


Reason for concern: To test the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) connections, what I am currently doing is the following, I have the aircraft hooked up to the hardware and while the Simulation is running with the HiL (Hardware in the Loop) the hardware is also driving the PWMs on the aircraft to allow me to see exactly how the movements compare and to make sure everything is operating correctly. What I have noticed is that the mixing seems to be causing problems in the actual aircraft. For example when pitching upward I see the aileron(s) moving and the elevators ( yes not both elevators just one ) I know this is common with mixing but I'm wondering wether or not its necessary and if its better than independent control of each surface.

davidgeorge212

I would think, given the plane you are talking about flying, that you would need elevator and aileron mixing. Because it is essentially a delta wing plane, the only control surfaces you have are on the wings. Those control surfaces have to act as both your elevator for lift and ailerons for turning.

davidgeorge212

Well now that I look at pictures of the plane it looks like it has quite a few surfaces. Does it have separate elevator and aileron surfaces? If thats the case you probably want to go that route.

derrick_chi

Yes the aircraft does have seperate aileron, elevator, and rudder control surfaces. Are you suggesting that I switch to independent control of each of the surfaces?

cmoulder

Which autopilot are you using?

derrick_chi

Everything on this project is custom, including the hardware and autopilot software, I wrote all of the code.