System identification and 6-DOF hovering controller design of unmanned model helicopter

For a maneuvering unmanned autonomous helicopter, it is necessary to design a proper controller for each flight mode. In this paper, the overall helicopter dynamics is derived and a hovering model is linearized and transformed into a state-space form. However, since it is difficult to obtain parameters for stability derivatives in the state-space directly, a linear control model is derived by a time-domain parametric system identification method with real flight data of a model helicopter. Then, two different controllers (a linear feedback controller with the proportional gain and a robust controller) are designed and their performances are compared. The simulation results show outstanding performance. The validated controllers can be utilized to enable autonomous flight of a RUAV (Rotorcraft-based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).