I am in the early stages of building a catamaran with fully submerged hydrofoils. The current configuration is two identical wings, one at the bow, and one at the stern. All wings have ailerons with the rear struts also having rudder yaw. The craft is driven by one propeller mounted on each rear strut above the wing. What would be the best control surface configuration to keep this system steady in the waves? I’m thinking setting both sets of wings as elevons. I most likely have to modify the codebase for altitude control but having a good starting point would be ideal.
You could use aileron on one wing, and elevators only on the other wing, just like a traditional airplane. I don’t see any reason to use elevons on both.
Why are you planning tandem identical wings? There are good reasons almost every airplane uses one large wing near the CG and another small wing (horizontal stab) far away. Most personal hydrofoils follow the same concept.
Have you considered differential thrust for yaw? Less control surfaces, less effort, likely more efficient and reliable.
If you really want to understand the forces and balance well, take a look at xflr5. It seems a bit intimidating at first, but it can give you a lot of insight into the problem.
There are several people with actively controlled hydrofoils running, take a look on youtube. What sensor do you plan to use for elevation?
I thought of doing a tandem wing because the forward wings are located at the very front of the vessel so if only the front wings have aileron control, the roll may not have good behavior. The reason why the wings are located at the front and not around the CG is because there is a payload slung under the bridge deck that extends into the water. I already plan to use differential thrust for yaw so rudder could be optional. I am aware of rctestflight’s series and have been following it closely. I plan to use lidar sensors for elevation. Currently, I’m building a smaller hydrofoil barge out of foam so I can play around with rctestflight’s ground effect vehicle code.