Hovering Control for a Small Scale Helicopter under Wind Disturbance

Abstract

Hovering capability differentiate a small scale helicopter from its fixed wing counterparts. This capability enables rotorcraft-based UAV to conduct missions that would be otherwise impossible to be achieved by conventional UAVs. The control for hover therefore represents one of the most important benchmark problems in the RUAV literatures. The paper deals with the control system design using Linear Quadratic Regulator for an autonomous small scale helicopter during hover. Multiple linear models are numerically extracted from nonlinear equations of motion for various trim conditions. Linear control system is then designed for the small scale helicopter to maintain hover subject to atmospheric disturbance. Simulations of various architectures (decoupled vs coupled and partial vs full state feedback) are conducted to evaluate practical control candidates for actual flight experiment.