Design, Modeling and Control of a Novel Jet Vectoring Backpack

This paper presents the design and development of a jet vectoring backpack (JVP) - a single-person vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft specifically designed for emergency and disaster relief. Unlike existing electrically powered personal flying devices, the JVP employs turbojet engines as primary propulsion units and integrates a one-dimensional thrust vectoring mechanism to enhance control torque response. This design achieves a compact configuration with high payload capacity and superior maneuverability, suitable for complex terrain deployment. A dynamic model of the JVP is established, and the nonlinear control problem is decoupled into a cascaded Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control structure combined with a control allocation module. Considering actuator dynamics, a real-time control allocation strategy prioritizing attitude stabilization (roll, pitch, and yaw) and altitude control is implemented on a microcontroller platform. To address the slow and inconsistent dynamic response of turbojet engines, a two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) control architecture is adopted, with inner-loop PID gains tuned via$H_\infty$optimization and a lead compensator in the outer loop to improve dynamic response. Experimental validations using a custom-built prototype demonstrate stable and precise control performance under complex conditions, highlighting the JVP's practical application potential.