A New Hybrid Control Architecture to Attenuate Large Horizontal Wind Disturbance for a Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopter

Xiaorui Zhu,Wenwu Zeng,Chunyang Zheng,Zexiang Li

doi:10.5772/51316

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method to attenuate large horizontal wind disturbance for a small-scale unmanned autonomous helicopter combining wind tunnel-based experimental data and a backstepping algorithm. Large horizontal wind disturbance is harmful to autonomous helicopters, especially to small ones because of their low inertia and the high cross-coupling effects among the multiple inputs. In order to achieve more accurate and faster attenuation of large wind disturbance, a new hybrid control architecture is proposed to take advantage of the direct force/moment compensation based on the wind tunnel experimental data. In this architecture, large horizontal wind disturbance is treated as an additional input to the control system instead of a small perturbation around the equilibrium state. A backstepping algorithm is then designed to guarantee the stable convergence of the helicopter to the desired position. The proposed technique is finally evaluated in simulation on the platform, HIROBO Eagle, compared with a traditional wind velocity compensation method.

Highlights

An unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) is suitable for a variety of applications such as surveillance and re‐ connaissance, search and rescue, urgent cargo transporta‐ tion, and scientific investigations in some extreme envi‐ ronments
In order to deal with this issue, this paper proposes a novel method to attenuate the large horizontal wind dis‐ turbance combining wind tunnel‐based experimental data and a backstepping algorithm
The main contribution of this paper includes a new hybrid control architecture based on the wind tunnel experimental data and the full dynamics of the helicopter to deal with large horizontal wind disturbances

Summary

Introduction

An unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) is suitable for a variety of applications such as surveillance and re‐ connaissance, search and rescue, urgent cargo transporta‐ tion, and scientific investigations in some extreme envi‐ ronments. A nonlinear robust controller was developed for a model‐scale helicopter to reduce the vertical wind dis‐ turbance based on the 3DOF helicopter model [27]. Considering the 6DOF nonlinear helicopter model, a robust backstepping con‐ troller was proposed for helicopters to reject the wind disturbance, taking advantage of the input observer tech‐ nique to reconstruct wind disturbance [29]. The main contribution of this paper includes a new hybrid control architecture based on the wind tunnel experimental data and the full dynamics of the helicopter to deal with large horizontal wind disturbances. A nonlinear robust control‐ ler based on the backstepping method is designed and simulated for a model‐scale helicopter to validate the proposed control strategy.

Nonlinear model of UAH

Hybrid Control Architecture

Control Parameter Bounds

Procedures and Parameters

Simulation Results and Discussion

Conclusions