Robust H2 Control with Adaptive Mechanism for the Yaw Control of Small-scale Helicopter

This paper presents a robust H₂ controller design approach to the yaw control of a small-scale helicopter mounted on an experimental platform. The yaw dynamic system is linearized into a linear system, which is modelled by an affine uncertainty model. A new robust H₂ feedback controller with adaptive mechanisms is proposed for the linear system. The feedback gains are obtained by the solutions of a series of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The design approach reduces conservatism inherent in robust control with a fixed gain controller and improves performances in time-response. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.