Hybrid controller design and simulation for a small-size autonomous helicopter

Purpose - During flight, a small-size autonomous helicopter will suffer external disturbance that is wind gust. Moreover, the small-size helicopter can carries limited payload or battery. Therefore control system of an autonomous helicopter should be able to eliminate external disturbance and optimize energy consumption. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid controller structure to control a small-size autonomous helicopter capable to eliminate external disturbance and optimize energy consumption. The proposed control strategy comprise of two components, a linear component to stabilize the nominal linear system and a discontinuous component to guarantee the robustness. An integral control is included in the system to eliminate steady state error and tracking reference input. Design/methodology/approach - This research started with derived mathematic model of the small-size helicopter that will be controlled. Based on the obtained mathematic model, then design of a hybrid controller to control the autonomous helicopter. The hybrid controller was designed based on optimal controller and sliding mode controller. The optimal controller as main controller is used to stabilize the nominal linear system and a discontinuous component based on sliding mode controller to guarantee the robustness. Findings - Performance of the proposed controller was tested in simulation. The hybrid controller performance was compared with optimal controller performance. The hybrid controller has better performance compared with optimal controller. Results of the simulation shows that the proposed controller has good performance and robust against external disturbances. The proposed controller has better performance in rise time, settling time and overshoot compared with optimal controller response both for step input response and tracking capability. Originality/value - Hybrid controller to control small-size helicopter has not reported yet. In this research new hybrid controller structure for a small size autonomous helicopter was proposed.