Observation on control and navigation capability of a tail-less blended wing-body UAV equipped with 4G internet communication

This paper highlights the development of flight navigation system using 4G communication protocol for a transport unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on a tail-less blended wing-body (BWB) UAV. Normal radio-based transceiver of 2.4GHz or 433MHz frequencies are limited, by regulation, to low power that limits their communication range to just merely one to two kilometres. Long-range navigation, while possible is automated mode, cannot be observed in real time due to limited communication distance. The objective of this research is to observe capabilities of a UAV navigation system utilizing 4G Internet communication specifically to the Blended Wing-Body type of configuration that requires sophisticated control and active stabilization. The UAV features six control surfaces with mixing strategy that enables these surfaces to act as elevators, ailerons, rudders and airbrakes. To achieve this, Navio2-Raspberry Pi4 IMU-controller-computer with Internet Protocol (IP) from cellular network is integrated into the BWB UAV in which the former controls propeller speed, four elevons and a pair of split drag flaps. The results show that good navigational accuracies of each waypoint is within 10 metres except for four waypoints which fall outside of aircraft’s manoeuvrability envelope, possibly due to manoeuvrability limitation. This successful integration opens promising possibilities for the future development and deployment of similar but larger UAV platforms, with improved efficiency and reliability in various applications.