Adaptive Flight Control Experiments using RAVEN

Abstract— This paper,discusses a new,flight test facility at MIT known,as the Real-time indoor Autonomous,Vehicle test ENvironment,(RAVEN) which,enables,the exploration of aggressive aerobatic flight with relatively low risk. A key feature of this work,is that the control algorithms,are often the limiting factor because,the flight dynamics,are highly nonlinear and not well known, and they can change with the flight mode,and,over,time. This paper,discusses the RAVEN facility and presents some,initial experimental,results using fixed wing,UAVs. These results demonstrate,some,of the key,advantages,of using,RAVEN; illustrate the types of performance,limitations typically faced when,executing aggressive aerobatic,maneuvers;,and,motivate,the current research on adaptive,flight control.