Automatic Flight Tests Execution on a Distributed Electrical Propulsion Demonstrator

In the framework of Clean Sky 2 program, the authors are in charge of developing an advanced Autopilot, and a dedicated testing framework for supporting the Scaled Vehicle Flight demonstrations of Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) aircraft. On top of a resume of the On-board Guidance, Navigation and Control system and GPRS developed by the authors, this paper will present the in-flight demonstration of the Guidance, Navigation and Control system through flight data recorded during the activities carried out in Grottaglie airport (Italy) on May, June and July 2024. Several flights tests have been performed with the On-board Guidance, Navigation and Control system in control of the D08 Scaled Flight Demonstrator and several maneuvers have been automatically executed by the On-board Guidance, Navigation and Control system. These tests carried out the parameter identification of the aircraft characteristics and the performance analysis of some Multi Input Multi Output control laws designed in order to take advantage of the intrinsic control redundancy of the vehicle configuration. The performances of the control laws were verified in nominal and not nominal conditions (e.g. engine, aileron and rudder failures).