Throttle (Horizontal)

Explanation

Throttle program is defined to control the horizontal thrust of the aircraft. For this purpose, pusher motor is involved, which allow the aircraft to fly in FW configuration.

Throttle actuation is performed with the use of Channel 5. This channel is controlled with the Manual block, which is configured to process throttle control depending on the control mode. This block switches between two input signals according to the current mode of the configured channel.

The Manual block receives two input signals, Stick and Auto and provides two output signals, Value, which depends on the flight mode, and Active.

The Value output of this block must be linked to the Control Output u5 Before Servo Saturation variable, since this variable controls the actuation of the Throttle defined in the Actuator block.

Moreover, the Aux: Throttle bit is true when the Autopilot 1x is not controlled by the stick.

The input variables, Stick and Auto, are different depending on the flight phase:

• Standby, Take-off, Landing, Init

  Since no Throttle action is required in these flight phases, the values for the Stick and Auto inputs are set to 0.0. Therefore, the output value of the Manual block is null.

  

• Approach, Loiter, Hover, Cruise, Climb, Flight Control Check

  

  • Stick input

    If the Stick-Transition variable has a value greater than 0.4 in range bit will be true and the Stick input of the Manual block will be written by the Stick-Throttle variable.

    

    Otherwise, if this variable has a value less than 0.4 in range bit will be false and the Stick input will have a value of 0.0.

    

    Note

    The Stick-Transition variable represents the position of the Stick command that defines the aircraft control mode. This command has two values: 1 for control of the aircraft using the stick pilot, and 0 for control of the aircraft in Auto mode, i.e., with Autopilot 1x.

  • Auto input

    The Auto input is written by the Mixer block. This blocks receives 3 input signals, 2 of them correspond to the Throttle control signals in quadcopter (1) and FW (2) flight configurations, and the value of the third signal (3) will be different depending on the flight phase.

    1. The control signal in the quadcopter flight configuration is zero since no Throttle control is performed in this flight configuration.

    2. The control signal in the FW flight configuration is defined with a PID controller.

       

    3. The input variable to the Mixer block is different in the Cruise and Hold flight phases:

       • Cruise

         In this flight phase, the input to the Mixer block is simply the variable Control mix written by the Control Mix program.

         Important

         This also applies to all other flight phases that are not explicitly defined, as this is the "Default case".

         

       • Hold

         In this flight phase, if the Stick-Transition variable has a value less than 0.5 Input for Mixer block = 0.0.

         

         Otherwise, if the Stick-Transition variable has a value greater than 0.5 Input for Mixer block = 1.0.

         

         Note

         This control logic represents the limits of the Control mix variable, being 0 quadcopter configuration and 1 FW configuration.