Improvement of PD pitching angle control of helicopter in the wind by variable P control gain

In this paper is the study of the behavior of small helicopter with Proportional-Derivative (PD) pitching angle control in wind. The performances of PD control are observed in wind with various values of P control gain to collect data for constructing suitable compensator which the effects of wind are considered directly. The wind tunnel test with dynamic technique was performed instead of flight test for simulating the wind attacking condition with safety in case that the helicopter becomes unstable. Based on experimental results, the PD pitching angle control with variable P control gain value was constructed. In windless condition this proposed control method uses high value of P control gain to reduce the steady state error. And in wind attacking condition this method will change to use lower value of P control gain to prevent the oscillation. The verification experiments have shown favorable control responses.