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Nonlinear dynamic modeling and control of a small-scale helicopter

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Abstract

A test bench for experimental testing of the attitude control of a small-scale helicopter is constructed. A nonlinear model with 10 states is developed for this experimental setup. The unknown model parameters are estimated using the extended Kalman filter with flight test data of the helicopter operating on the test bench. In this work, it is proved that the nonlinear helicopter dynamic model may be globally feedback linearized using the dynamic feedback linearization technique. In order to satisfy multiple closed-loop performance specifications simultaneously, a controller is proposed by applying the Convex Integrated Design (CID) method to the feedback linearized model. Finally, the controller is tested in simulation demonstrating the closed-loop performance of the proposed controller.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Electronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan, 410073, China

    Baoquan Song

  2. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G8, Canada

    Baoquan Song & James K. Mills

  3. Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Yunhui Liu

  4. College of Electronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan, 410073, China

    Caizhi Fan

Authors
  1. Baoquan Song
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  2. James K. Mills
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  3. Yunhui Liu
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  4. Caizhi Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baoquan Song.

Additional information

Recommended by Editor Hyun Seok Yang. This work was supported by the National Graduate Student Program of Building World-Class Universities of China (Grant No.[2007]3020), National Natural Science Fund of China (No.60975023), and the Hong Kong RGC under grants 414406 and 414407.

Baoquan Song received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in Automatic Control from National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. He was a visiting Ph.D. student with the Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada in 2008. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the Dept. of Information and Communication Engineering, National University of Defense Technology. His research interests include helicopter control, nonlinear control, and robust control.

James K. Mills received his B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering (Manitoba) and an M.E. degree in Electrical Engineering (Toronto) in 1980 and 1982 and completed a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering (Toronto) in 1987. He is currently a Professor with Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Toronto. His research interests include nonlinear control, adaptive control, and system identification.

Yunhui Liu received his B.E. degree in Applied Dynamics from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, an M.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osaka University, Japan, and a Ph.D in Mathematical Engineering and Information Physics from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1985, 1989, and 1992, respectively. He is currently a Professor with Dept. of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Liu is a Fellow of IEEE and was members of the Robotics Society of Japan and of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers. His research interests include visual servoing of dynamic systems, medical robotics, internet robotics, education robotics, multi-fingered grasping, and active sensor networks.

Caizhi Fan received his B.E. degree in Thermal Dynamics from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China and his M.E. degree in Astronautic Science and Technology from the National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the Dept. of Information and Communication Engineering, National University of Defense Technology. His research interests include visual servoing, adaptive control and predictive control.

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Song, B., Mills, J.K., Liu, Y. et al. Nonlinear dynamic modeling and control of a small-scale helicopter. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 8, 534–543 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-010-0306-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-010-0306-5

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