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Design and Implementation of a Flight Control System for an Unmanned Rotorcraft using RPT Control Approach
Author(s) -
Cai Guowei,
Wang Biao,
Chen Ben M.,
Lee Tong H.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
asian journal of control
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.769
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 1934-6093
pISSN - 1561-8625
DOI - 10.1002/asjc.504
Subject(s) - control theory (sociology) , control system , control engineering , fly by wire , controller (irrigation) , inner loop , flight test , engineering , signal (programming language) , control (management) , loop (graph theory) , robust control , computer science , simulation , artificial intelligence , agronomy , electrical engineering , mathematics , combinatorics , biology , programming language
In this paper, we apply a so‐called robust and perfect tracking ( RPT ) control technique to the design and implementation of the flight control system of a miniature unmanned rotorcraft, named H e L ion. To make the presented work self‐contained, we will first outline some background knowledge, including mainly the nonlinear flight dynamics model and the inner‐loop flight control system design. Next, the highlight of this paper, that is, the outer‐loop flight control system design procedure using RP T control technique, will be detailed. Generally speaking, RPT control technique aims to design a controller such that (i) the resulting closed‐loop system is asymptotically stable, and (ii) the controlled output almost perfectly tracks a given reference signal in the presence of any initial conditions and external disturbances. Since it makes use of all possible information including the system measurement output and the command reference signal together with all its derivatives (if available) for control, RPT control technique is particularly useful for the outer‐loop layer of an unmanned aircraft. Both simulation and flight‐test results will be presented and analyzed at the end of this paper, and the efficiency of the RPT control approach will be evaluated comprehensively.