Unmanned aerial vehicle including secondary flight controls for speed-independent attitude control and axis-independent linear motion

A method performed by a flight controller of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that comprises an airframe, a set of primary flight controls connected to the airframe, and a set of secondary flight controls that comprises at least a first set of one or more thrusters connected to a front portion of the airframe and a second set of one or more thrusters connected to a rear portion of the airframe, wherein at least two thrusters of the first set of one or more thrusters or the second set of one or more thrusters are multi-purpose thrusters, and wherein the flight controller is housed in the airframe and is connected to and configured to simultaneously operate the set of primary flight controls and the set of secondary flight controls, the method comprising:

• operating the set of primary flight controls to control an attitude and linear motion of the UAV in three spatial dimensions throughout the flight envelope of the UAV, wherein the set of primary flight controls comprises a combination of fixed wing aircraft flight controls and rotorcraft flight controls;
• and
• operating the set of secondary flight controls to control the attitude and the linear motion of the UAV in any of the three spatial dimensions in a speed-independent manner throughout the flight envelope of the UAV, wherein operating the set of secondary flight controls comprises independently configuring each of the multi-purpose thrusters in different combinations to generate thrust in different directions and control the attitude and the linear motion of the UAV in any of the three spatial dimensions in the speed-independent manner throughout the flight envelope of the UAV, and wherein the UAV is a compound aircraft.