Adaptive Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Control of a Three Degree-of-Freedom Helicopter

This paper combines interval type-2 fuzzy logic with adaptive control theory for the control of a three degree-of-freedom (DOF) helicopter. This strategy yields robustness to various kinds of uncertainties and guaranteed stability of the closed-loop control system. Thus, precise trajectory tracking is maintained under various operational conditions with the presence of various types of uncertainties. Unlike other controllers, the proposed controller approximates the helicopter's inverse dynamic model and assumes no a priori knowledge of the helicopter's dynamics or parameters. The proposed controller is applied to a 3-DOF helicopter model and compared against three other controllers, i.e., PID control, adaptive control, and adaptive sliding-mode control. Numerical results show its high performance and robustness under the presence of uncertainties. To better assess the performance of the control system, two quantitative tracking performance metrics are introduced, i.e., the integral of the tracking errors and the integral of the control signals. Comparative numerical results reveal the superiority of the proposed method by achieving the highest tracking accuracy with the lowest control effort.