Development of an Autonomous Flight Control System for a Distributed Electric Propulsion Flying Model
Giorgio FILIPPOLI, Beniamino M. PERRI, Niko TERZAROLI, Lorenzo TRAINELLI, Stefano CACCIOLA, Carlo E. D. RIBOLDI
Abstract. The scope of this work is the realization of a fully automated testing campaign, through the development of an autonomous Flight Control System (FCS), in order to support the model identification of a Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) scaled demonstrator. The autopilot has been used to follow a GPS trajectory, reach trim conditions, execute the required maneuvers, define and tune specific control actions and carry out automatic safety checks. The chosen software environment is PX4, an open-source professional autopilot, which has been extended and customized to carry out the flight operations needed for parametric identification, while fulfilling functional and safety-related requirements. In addition, a simulation environment has been set up for software testing and pre-flight configuration. The result is a fully automated platform for flight testing and advanced research within DEP models.
Keywords
Distributed Electric Propulsion, Flight Control System, Automated Flight Testing, Model Identification
Published online 7/20/2026, 6 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Giorgio FILIPPOLI, Beniamino M. PERRI, Niko TERZAROLI, Lorenzo TRAINELLI, Stefano CACCIOLA, Carlo E. D. RIBOLDI, Development of an Autonomous Flight Control System for a Distributed Electric Propulsion Flying Model, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 656-661, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-116
The article was published as article 116 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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