Modeling and System Identification of the muFly Micro Helicopter

An accurate mathematical model is indispensable for simulation and control of a micro helicopter. The nonlinear model in this work is based on the rigid body motion where all external forces and moments as well as the dynamics of the different hardware elements are discussed and derived in detail. The important model parameters are estimated, measured or identified in an identification process. While most parameters are identified from test bench measurements, the remaining ones are identified on subsystems using the linear prediction error method on real flight data. The good results allow to use the systems for the attitude and altitude controller design.