Stabilization control for unmanned helicopter-slung load system based on active disturbance rejection control and improved sliding mode control

Abstract

Unmanned helicopters are widely used in military and civil fields. One of the most important applications is flying with an underslung load, but the pendulum-like behavior of the load can cause damage or even forced landing to the helicopter. To solve this problem, a control strategy to stabilize the helicopter/load system based on active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) and improved sliding mode control (ISMC) algorithms is proposed in this paper. First, the helicopter/load system is modelled using Newton-Euler equations according to the multi-body dynamics theory. Then a manipulation strategy which can reduce the swing angle of the load and an overall control strategy for the helicopter/load system are presented. Specifically, ADRC is applied to attitude control due to its ability to regard the pendulum-like behavior as the internal uncertainties of the system, meanwhile ISMC to position control. Within ISMC, two sliding surfaces with adjustable weights are constructed by employing the position of the helicopter as well as the swing angle of the load. In addition, a real-time beetle antennae search algorithm is designed to online modify the weights by taking the minimum error at current time as the optimization objective. Besides, the radial basis function neural network is introduced to approach the uncertainty coefficients considering the system’s complexity. At last, relevant simulations are carried out and the results indicate that the system is capable of not only controlling the attitude and position of the helicopter precisely but also stabilizing the underslung load rapidly with ADRC and ISMC.