Real-Time Control of a Small-Scale Helicopter Having Three Rotors

This paper presents an original configuration for a small aerial vehicle based on three rotors with fixed-angle propellers. The process of control vectors generation is described, and a detailed mathematical modeling of the aircraft dynamics is presented. We have also proposed a control strategy for full stabilization of the tri-rotor aircraft considering some real constraints specific to small UAVs. The synthesized controller is simple and results in good performance as demonstrated in simulations and in real-time experiments. We have also developed a useful Simulink-based platform for real-time control purposes