Flight dynamic stability performance of the baseline-ix blended-wing-body unmanned aerial system using flight simulator / Shahrean Zainurin

The flight quality or behaviour of a blended-wing-body (BWB) unmanned aerial system
(UAS) could be gathered and evaluated through virtual simulation or software-in-theloop
(SITL) simulation. This is done through a specific setup between a ground control
station (GCS) software, Mission Planner and a flight simulation software, X-Plane 11.
BWB UAS flight dynamics, unlike conventional aircraft, can be unstable or have poor
flying quality. Performing real flight testing can be very costly in the long run. The best
solution to counter these drawbacks is to simulate flying behaviour virtually, before the
first prototype is developed and before actual flight test is conducted. A specific and
suitable simulation and testing is chosen to determine and improve the flight dynamics
and behaviour of the BWB aircraft. Throughout this experiment, Baseline-IX BWB
UAS, developed by Flight Technology & Test Center, Universiti Teknologi MARA
(UiTM) was used as the model in the simulation software, which also provides the
environment model, for example, wind, turbulence, time of day. A flight simulation was
configured as per real flight and connected to the simulation computer, rather than the
physical UAS.