FUZZY LOGIC ASSISTED HELICOPTER UAV FLIGHT CONTROL

The use of small-sized helicopters as UAV for professional applications is rapidly increasing. Flying a helicopter is a task that requires a great amount of experience and skill. This is due to the strong coupling that exists between the six degrees of freedom, resulting in the 12 dimensions needed to describe the dynamics of a helicopter. Therefore, to perform even simple flight movements a helicopter pilot has to carefully adjust more than one control simultaneously. The application of fuzzy controllers in a ground-based user interface enables fixed-wing pilots and even non-flying operators to fly a helicopter UAV mission in a controllable way. This paper investigates the feasibility of using fuzzy logic to assist a ground-based UAV pilot.