Investigation of Novel Concepts for Control of a Personal Air Vehicle

This paper reports results from a study to investigate the use of novel control systems designed to provide a safe and reliable method for the control of a future Personal Aerial Vehicle (PAV). Previous research into vehicle response type requirements, conducted within the EC FP-7 project myCopter, has centered around 'conventional' rotorcraft-type control configurations. In this paper, the use of response and control characteristics derived from road vehicles is investigated. Objective and subjective techniques are used to quantify and qualify the applicability of automobile-like response characteristics using traditional helicopter control inceptors modified to behave somewhat like automobile controls, using foot pedals to control an Acceleration Command, Speed Hold system, for example. Additionally, the effects of eliminating vehicle pitch and roll dynamics are investigated to determine whether this allows a reduction in workload for non-professional pilots. Results suggest that, particularly for the most inexperienced of pilots, the automobile-like configuration is more suitable for control of a PAV than an augmented set of helicopter-style response types. This is shown through increased performance, and a reduction in subjective NASA Task Load Index (TLX) ratings. Improved Handling Qualities Ratings (HQRs) were also obtained in the automobile-like system for the tasks undertaken. Overall, removal of pitch and roll dynamics was not found to significantly affect task performance in the automobile-like system, but their absence resulted in a decrease in performance for the rotorcraft-style response type configurations tested.