Autonomous flight control for an RC helicopter

Author

Camilleri, Michael ; Scerri, Kenneth ; Zammit, Saviour

Author_Institution

Dept. of Commun. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Malta, Msida, Malta

fYear

2012

fDate

25-28 March 2012

Firstpage

391

Lastpage

394

Abstract

This paper presents an autopilot system for a Radio Controlled (RC) helicopter, in a simulation environment. The controller is designed using Fuzzy Logic in order to achieve simplicity and cost effectiveness. The system controls the helicopter from takeoff to landing, allowing the craft to reach any position and hover stably with a defined yaw attitude at the request of the user. The Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) in use were able to allow for these operations with more than satisfactory results, even in simulated winds.

Keywords

autonomous aerial vehicles; control system synthesis; fuzzy control; fuzzy reasoning; helicopters; mobile robots; robot kinematics; RC helicopter; autonomous flight control; autopilot system; controller design; fuzzy inference system; fuzzy logic; helicopter landing; helicopter takeoff; radio controlled helicopter; Acceleration; Attitude control; Control systems; Educational institutions; Helicopters; Mathematical model; Autonomous Helicopter Flight; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; fuzzy logic control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON), 2012 16th IEEE Mediterranean

Conference_Location

Yasmine Hammamet

ISSN

2158-8473

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0782-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MELCON.2012.6196456

Filename

6196456