The Design and Development of a Flight Control System for a Small Size Unmanned Helicopter

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengbang Gong ◽  
Wei Feng ◽  
Tongyue Gao ◽  
Jun Luo
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Unmanned Helicopter ◽  
Flight Control System ◽  
Design And Development

Flight Control System Design and Autonomous Flight Control of Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopter Based on Nanosensors

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 675-688
Author(s):  
Xinfan Yin ◽  
Xianmin Peng ◽  
Guichuan Zhang ◽  
Binghui Che ◽  
Chang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Control Algorithm ◽  
Installation Space ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Unmanned Helicopter ◽  
Flight Control System ◽  
Autonomous Flight ◽  
Position Controller ◽  
Attitude Controller

Due to the limitation of the size and power, micro unmanned aerial vehicle (MUAV) usually has a small load capacity. Aiming at the problems of limited installation space and easy being interfered in flight attitude measurement of the small-scale unmanned helicopter (SUH), a low-cost and lightweight flight control system of the SUH based on ARM Cortex-M4 core microcontroller and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors is developed in this paper. On this basis, in order to realize the autonomous flight control of SUH, firstly, the mathematical model of the SUH is given by using the Newton-Euler formulation. Secondly, a cascade flight controller consisting of the attitude controller and the position controller is developed based on linear active disturbance rejection control (LADRC) and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control. Furthermore, simulations are conducted to validate the performance of the attitude controller and the position controller in MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation environment. Finally, based on the Align T-REX 470L SUH experimental platform, the hovering experiment and the route flight experiment are also carried out to validate the performance of the designed flight control system hardware and the proposed control algorithm. The results show that the flight control system designed in this paper has high reliability and strong anti-interference ability, and the control algorithm can effectively and reliably realize the attitude stabilization control and route control of the SUH, with high control accuracy and small error.

System identification and robust attitude control of an unmanned helicopter using novel low-cost flight control system

2019 ◽  
Vol 234 (5) ◽  
pp. 634-645
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Khalesi ◽  
Hassan Salarieh ◽  
Mahmoud Saadat Foumani
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Robust Control ◽  
System Identification ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Raspberry Pi ◽  
Unmanned Helicopter ◽  
Flight Control System ◽  
Robust Control System

In recent years, unmanned aerial systems have attracted great attention due to the electronic systems technology advancements. Among these vehicles, unmanned helicopters are more important because of their special abilities and superior performance. The complex nonlinear dynamic system (caused by main rotor flapping dynamics coupled with the rigid body rotational motion) and considerable effects of ambient disturbance make their utilization hard in actual missions. Attitude dynamics have the main role in helicopter stabilization, so implementing proper control system for attitude is an important issue for unmanned helicopter hovering and trajectory tracking performance. Besides this, experimental utilization of low-cost flight control system for unmanned helicopters is still a challenging task. In this article, dynamic modeling, system identification, and robust control system implementation of roll and pitch dynamics of an unmanned helicopter is performed. A TRex-600E radio-controlled helicopter is equipped with a novel low-cost flight control system designed and constructed based on Raspberry Pi Linux-based microcomputer. Using Raspberry Pi makes this platform simpler to utilize and more time and cost-effective than similar platforms used before. The experiments are performed on a 5-degree-of-freedom testbed. The robust control system is designed based on [Formula: see text] method and is evaluated in real flight tests. The experiment results show that the proposed platform has the ability to successfully control the roll and pitch dynamics of the unmanned helicopter.

Take-off and landing control for a coaxial ducted fan unmanned helicopter

2017 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 764-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi Chen ◽  
Daobo Wang ◽  
Ziyang Zhen ◽  
Biao Wang ◽  
Jian Fu
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Control Strategy ◽  
Sliding Mode ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Unmanned Helicopter ◽  
Flight Control System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ducted Fan ◽  
Coupling Characteristics

Purpose This paper aims to present a control strategy that eliminates the longitudinal and lateral drifting movements of the coaxial ducted fan unmanned helicopter (UH) during autonomous take-off and landing and reduce the coupling characteristics between channels of the coaxial UH for its special model structure. Design/methodology/approach Unidirectional auxiliary surfaces (UAS) for terminal sliding mode controller (TSMC) are designed for the flight control system of the coaxial UH, and a hierarchical flight control strategy is proposed to improve the decoupling ability of the coaxial UH. Findings It is demonstrated that the proposed height control strategy can solve the longitudinal and lateral movements during autonomous take-off and landing phase. The proposed hierarchical controller can decouple vertical and heading coupling problem which exists in coaxial UH. Furthermore, the confronted UAS-TSMC method can guarantee finite-time convergence and meet the quick flight trim requirements during take-off and landing. Research limitations/implications The designed flight control strategy has not implemented in real flight test yet, as all the tests are conducted in the numerical simulation and simulation with a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) platform. Social implications The designed flight control strategy can solve the common problem of coupling characteristics between channels for coaxial UH, and it has important theoretical basis and reference value for engineering application; the control strategy can meet the demands of engineering practice. Originality/value In consideration of the TSMC approach, which can increase the convergence speed of the system state effectively, and the high level of response speed requirements to UH flight trim, the UAS-TSMC method is first applied to the coaxial ducted fan UH flight control. The proposed control strategy is implemented on the UH flight control system, and the HIL simulation clearly demonstrates that a much better performance could be achieved.

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