Cascaded position and heading control of a robotic helicopter

— We present a cascaded control architecture for a Yamaha RMAX robotic helicopter. The controller is composed of an inner-loop that stabilizes the unstable poles of the helicopter’s linear dynamic model; and an outer-loop that decouples the dynamics of the lateral, longitudinal, vertical, and heading axes and enables trajectory tracking. Actual flight results are presented to demonstrate the validity of the method. A discussion on the method’s limitations and our plans on how to overcome them are also presented.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: IROS
• Authors: Marcel Bergerman, Omead Amidi, James Ryan Miller, Nick Vallidis, Todd Dudek
• Keywords: Heading Axes, IROS 2007, RMAX Robotic Helicopter, Robotics, Unstable Poles