Modelling, Flight Dynamics and Inner-Loop Control of an Urban Air Mobility Vehicle Subject to Empirically-Developed Urban Airflow Disturbances

Advanced Air Mobility in general, and Urban Air Mobility in particular, are expected to play a significant role in improving transportation of people and goods in increasingly growing urban centres while contributing to reduction in emissions and reaching the goal of sustainable urban growth. The goal of this work was to investigate the performance of a novel controller as an autopilot for a generic aircraft operating in urban airflow. In this investigation, the extraction of geometric, inertial and aerodynamic properties of a generic urban air taxi, similar in design to the Bell Nexus 4EX, was carried out. Subsequently the properties were used as a basis for the development of a linearized flight dynamics numerical model of the aircraft. Flights about a trimmed condition at cruising speed were simulated including cases where the urban air taxi was immersed in empirically-developed urban airflow disturbances. The open-loop response of the urban air taxi...