Modeling and control system design for a UAV helicopter

We present in this paper a linearized hovering model of a UAV helicopter obtained using the in-flight data generated through a perturbation method. The UAV helicopter is constructed from a radio-controlled helicopter by integrating an onboard system, which includes a data processing unit, a data acquisition system, a wireless communications and an necessary sensors. A flight control law is then designed using a newly developed nonlinear control technique, i.e. the composite nonlinear feedback control. Actual flight testing shows that the design is successful.