Special Issue “Technologies for Future Distributed Engine Control Systems”

Current trends in aviation greatly expand the use of highly integrated, increasingly autonomous air vehicles, with distributed engine control systems (DECS) [...]

Dynamic analysis and qft-based robust control design of a coaxial micro-helicopter

This paper presents the dynamic behavior of a coaxial micro-helicopter, under Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT) control. The flight dynamics of autonomous air vehicles (AAVs) with rotating rings is non-linear and complex. Then, it becomes necessary to characterize these non-linearities for each flight configuration, in order to provide these autonomous air vehicles (AAVs) with autonomous flight and navigation capabilities. Then, the nonlinear model is linearized around the operating point using some assumptions. Finally, a robust QFT control law over the coaxial micro-helicopter is applied to meet some specifications. QFT (quantitative feedback theory) is a control law design method that uses frequency domain concepts to meet performance specifications while managing uncertainty. This method is based on the feedback control when the plant is uncertain or when uncertain disturbances are affecting the plant. The QFT design approach involves conventional frequency response loop shaping by manipulating the gain variable with the poles and zeros of the nominal transfer function. The design process is accomplished by using MATLAB environment software.