Exploring the Use of Reverse Thrust in a Dynamic UAS Landing Maneuver using Kinodynamic RRT

The concept of reversing the direction of the main propeller (and thereby the thrust) of an electric, fixed-wing unmanned aerial system (UAS) during landing maneuvers is examined in this paper. The physical performance of a propeller and motor combination is first tested using a custom thrust test bench. A two-dimensional simulation of a fixed-wing UAS is then created using a nonlinear dynamics model and the dynamics are used in a Rapidly-Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm to search for feasible trajectories and their necessary control inputs. The possible usefulness of the reverse thrust maneuver is then demonstrated and shown in simulation with favorable results.